RESIGNATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS

Ernest Fox Nichols, tenth president of the College, announced his resignation at the close of the chapel service on Sunday, November 21. The Board of Trustees had met at a special meeting held in Boston on Friday, November 19, when the resignation was reluctantly accepted. President Nichols will return to the work in which he had won the highest distinction before assuming the presidency of Dartmouth; namely, research in the domain of physical science, a chair in which subject has been tendered him by Yale University.

His letter of resignaton handed Friday to the trustees is as follows:

NOVEMBER SIXTEENTH 1915

To THE HONORABLE TRUSTEES OF DARTMOUTH COLLEGE

GENTLEMEN,

Herewith I tender you my resignation of the Presidency of the College, to take effect June 30, 1916, and I pray you to accept it.

Six and a half years ago, when you did me the honor to call me to my present office, the College was passing through a critical period, and in heeding your call I reluctantly left the work of a teacher and student of physics, which for twenty years had fully occupied my time, my mind, my enthusiasm, and had gratified my every ambition.

The College needs of that earlier time have been largely met, and through the splendid cooperation and united efforts of many devoted fellow workers the College is now in an exceptionally strong position, both in its internal organization and in its external relations. There seems, therefore, no compelling reason why I may not ask you to let me go back to my earlier work, the duties and recompenses of which are in fuller accord with my individual tastes and preferences. For this return an invitation to a chair of Physics in Yale College affords the acceptable opportunity.

Yet in leaving the official service of the College, as in coming to it, I hold its vital interests above my personal wishes. The duties of my office I have found exacting, and its high responsibilities, much as you have done to lighten them, a heavy burden. Looking forward to the many active years lying before a man of my age, I seriously doubt my endurance to hold through to the end to give the College that vigorous and efficient service which its continued welfare requires of its President. Moreover I feel a growing conviction that the best work it is in me to do for the College is already done.

You who already know it I need not tell how precious to me have been the personal associations and friendships with the members of your own body, past and present, with my colleagues of the faculty and in the administration ; nor need I speak of the loyal friendship and fine support I have had from graduates and undergraduates alike,—relations which from their warmth and heartiness have cheered and lightened my labors and given them whatever value they may have possessed.

The duties of my office I shall surrender gladly. With the priceless human associations it has brought me I trust and pray I may never have to part.

With affectionate respect and regard, Sincerely, (Signed) ERNEST FOX NICHOLS

The resignation was accepted by the Trustees in these terms :

BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS, November 19, 1915

ERNEST FOX NICHOLS, D.SC., LL.D., PRESIDENT OF DARTMOUTH COLLEGE

DEAR MR. PRESIDENT,

It is with the greatest reluctance that we, the Trustees of Dartmouth College, accept your resignation of the Presidency of Dartmouth College-, to take effect at the close of your seventh year of service.

Since you undertook the exacting duties of your office, you have given yourself loyally and without stint to their fulfillment. In difficult processes of readjustment you have brought to bear a high order of administrative ability, enriched with a large tolerance, an exhaustless patience, a noble dignity and generosity.

You brought to your task at Dartmouth trained powers of analysis, coupled with the loftiest ideals of scholarship. You have thus built up in the College an educational and administrative organization adequate and harmonious. Your impress upon the student body has been in terms of wider conceptions of intellectuality.

It had been our hope that Dartmouth College might long continue to enjoy your leadership. Yet we can but recognize that the sacrifices which you have already made deserve worthier recognition than the demand that you continue them at serious cost to your own well-being.

In the chosen field of science to which you are about to return you will carry our sure expectaton of great accomplishment and added honors; but more especially you will carry our warm personal affection, the outgrowth of seven years of intimate fellowship in a common cause.

You will believe us, With most sincere esteem, THE TRUSTEES OF DARTMOUTH COLLEGE

In making his public announcement to the College, President Nichols said:

The matter I have to announce in no way affects the College during the present year. It is made now rather than later in order to give ampler time for such arrangements as the trustees may deem it wise to make before the year's end.

After long and thoughtful consideration of the welfare of the College for twenty years to come I have reached a decision which I have communicated to the trustees in the letter I have before me. The legal authority and responsibility for the College rests with them. While the letter is addressed to the trustees, as it should be, it is written as much to you as to them.

Our friendship, yours and mine, rests on good foundations. We have found something each to give to the other, and we have given it generously.

When a man sees his guiding principle clearly, if he looks upon it sadly he calls it duty, if gladly he calls it his star. Whether it be star or duty, he must ungrudgingly leave home and friends, if need be, and pursue it. To me the path ahead is a duty, lighted by a star, and I follow it.

The College has come down to us, unbroken through five generations, ever stronger, ever better. We come and we go, but the College goes steadily forward with greater and greater promise. It will endure as long upon this ground as men love and seek the truth. Thus to each of us when we come into this fellowship, the meeting point of an honorable past and a shining future, a torch is given into our hands which we each must carry forward, and by our love and energy keep it burning ever brighter until we shall hand our torches on to. those who come after us.

The present only is ours, and each one of has a share and a part to play in it. The future will rest on what we build, and thus shall our work, your work and my work, be judged.

This year is ours together. In honor and in brotherhood, in loyalty and in truth, let us make it as perfect as it lies in our united powers to do.

It is only "through the street of Today that man goes to the house of Tomorrow."

One of the members of the Board of Trustees made the following statement on behalf of the Board as a whole:

It has been for some time known that the world of physics, in which Doctor Nichols gained eminence as a discoverer before assuming the presidency of Dartmouth, was seeking to induce him to return where he was not only missed, but sorely needed. Hence his resignation is not a matter of complete surprise.

It was President Nichols' hope when he first undertook his administrative responsibilities that he might, byway of recreation at least, find opportunity to continue scientific research. This, however, proved impossible. But, without the faintest indication of disappointment, the President set aside his hopes and applied himself unreservedly to new duties. In seven years he will have made what might well be considered a life-time's contribution to the well-being of Dartmouth. By unremitting labor he has accomplished a monumental task. Hence he has earned the right to return to his first and chosen field of activity, where large honors still await him.

When President Nichols came to Dartmouth, he recognized his problem as that of organizing an institution which had achieved unparalleled growth under the personal guidance and inspiration of one great leader. That which President Tucker had built up and carried, largely alone, President Nichols perceived could not be safely shifted to another single individual. Either an organization must be established to carry forward the work, or there must be temporary and perhaps dangerous collapse.

There was no collapse. Indeed there was no perceptible pause in the progress of the College.

The first changes which were accomplished under President Nichols involved the organization of the Board of Trustees. Committees were reconstructed, and responsibilities redistributed. Separation between business and educational functions were clearly recognized, and the importance of each given due weight. There followed the establishing of more accurate methods in the business conduct of the College: first in the introduction of a budget and audit system, and later in the appointment of a business director to have general oversight of the business staff and to act as the executive officer of the business committee of the trustees.

Greater faculty effectiveness was sought, in part by increasing the faculty remuneration, in part by encouraging closer social intercourse through the medium of a "faculty club," in part by establishing between the faculty and the student body an adviser system whose beneficial results as affecting individuals and groups alike have been far reaching.

With this has gone the conscious insistence upon high standards of scholarship, and a stricter guardianship over entrance requirements.

Of the graduate schools associated with Dartmouth, the Thayer School of Engineering has been re-housed. The perplexities of a rural Medical School have been met by reducing the course from four years complete, to two years preliminary, and making affiliations with urban institutions offering large clinical facilities. The Tuck School of Administration had broadened its curriculum with a view to preparing men for the new demands of modern business.

Alumni regard for the College has been maintained, and, at many points, increased. Of this, sufficient evidence is found in the re-awakaning of vital interest among Dartmouth teachers, the formation of an alumni council and the definite establishment of an alumni fund to help meet the growing need of the College.

In the midst of all this internal change and development, the physical progress of the College has undergone material acceleration. Public confidence has expressed itself in an increase of student enrollment from 1112 in 1909, when President Nichols was inaugurated, to 1470 in 1915. Endowments have increased, in that time, by more than a million dollars, and annual income by one hundred thousand dollars. The faculty and administrative officers now number 142 against 116 in 1909.

The completion of the new alumni gymnasium, the erection of an administration building and a building for student affairs, together with much remodeling of older buildings to meet the needs of an expanding student body, have all come in the six years of President Nichols' administration. The attractiveness of Hanover has been augmented by the building of the magnificent Tuck Drive, and by the acquisition of Hilton Field, the latter as a golf links; while Mr. Johnson's gifts of equipment and money for the Outing Club have done much to revolutionize student life at Dartmouth during the winter months.

President Nichols leaves Dartmouth a well organized, coherent, vigorous institution, able and ready to respond to the promptings of such later leadership as shall point the way of its destiny. His years of the presidency have been a period of difficult transition, most ably conducted and most satisfactorily completed.