Bravery, self-sacrifice, the large spirit
of service, are vividly exemplified in four Dartmouth men to whom, within the past month death has come untimely. Winfield Scott "Hammond '84, governor of Minnesota, was in the midst of a stateman's career. He was a party man in so far as party . stands for certain fundamental political beliefs. For the tawdry methods of cheap partisanship he had no regard. His duty, he perceived, lay in conserving and increasing the welfare of the people of his state. To this end he was devoting himself with unremitting labor when the sudden end came.
Joseph A. DeBoer, of the same class, stands in the memory of all men who knew him as the high type of American business man. He was a scholar, whose mind, whetted on the classics, clove to the root of all questions, however involved and difficult. He was an honorable gentleman, whose conceptions of righteousness permeated every business and public relationship as deeply as they did relationships of a personal and private nature. Through a great corporation, inspired by and with his own splendid soul, he rendered service to the entire nation. Fearless before men in maintaining the just standards which he sought, during his last tragic weeks of suffering he bore his burden without complaint and faced death with a smile.
George Willard Newman, 1902, was one of those who paid the penalty of loyalty to their employers and to their work by being killed in Mexico. He must have known the risk to be encountered. Used as he was to conditions in that harried country he must have realized the danger that beset him. The gain was little in comparison with the possible loss. He was a mining engineer; he was responsible to a company. He chose to do what seemed to him his duty.
And on another quest, the direct and immediate aid of suffering men, Richard Hall, 1915, laid down his life. The vision abides of this slight young man guiding his frail motor ambulance along the high, white roads of mountain France. It was on Christmas morning that a German shell ended their journeys.
Four different men, four different calls; but each call answered.
At the present writing the undergraduate is entrenched behind his books. Preparedness in the face of the daily onslaught of examinations becomes for him so necessary an issue, as, for the moment, to force military plans into the background. This, however, does not mean that the College can long avoid taking some ground with reference to the innumerable suggestions, plans and movements looking to undergraduate training for military service.
At present in many minds there is a good deal of confusion concerning the whole matter. It has, for instance, been taken for granted that if the College authorities should express a hospitable intent, the United States government would be glad to take advantage of the opportunity to supply equipment and instruction for such students as might care to enroll themselves in a volunteer company.
This, however, is not the case. The government has expressed willingness to supply certain equipment and instruction provided the College Trustees should guarantee a minimum number of pupils, assume responsibility for the care of equipment and give special assurances as to the status of a military course as part of the curriculum.
Obviously the trustees can do no such thing. To guarantee a certain number of pupils would necessitate making military training at Dartmouth College compulsory, a procedure entirely foreign to the nature and discipline of the institution. However desirable some form of military conscription may be in the United States, its application is for the central government and not for isolated groups of educational trustees. A curriculum may be built up successfully with military education as its foundation. The experience of the land grant colleges, however, offers small argument for making drill and tactics part of a course of study otherwise devoted to the. liberal arts and sciences.
Doubtless should the national government devise a compulsory military service for all the young men of the nation, the endowed colleges would lend such hospitable assistance as their plant equipment would allow. Doubtless, too, they would in similar measure cooperate in the encouragement of volunteer service by students as groups acting under either state or national authority.
The wish of college men to fit themselves for the defense of their country in case of need is worthy of high praise. So clear an issue should not be muddled by consideration of compulsory requirement behind or encouraging credits before. This view appears now to have prevailed.
Carnival is with us once more, and Hanover is about to be besieged by many people, bent on discovering what winter in New Hampshire is really like. It is sad to think that the stage may not arbitrarily be set to meet their imagination. Plethoric America has seen an infinite variety of weather within the past few weeks. What brand is pigeonholed to be dragged out for Carnival in Hanover is beyond guessing. History records that one such occasion was made possible only by the fortunate discovery of a small snowdrift on the north side of the medical laboratory. It was lugged off in pails and distributed at strategic points on the day of the chief outdoor events. Probably it is fortunate that despite their predilection for the drifts the undergraduates have been persuaded to hold a part of their celebration within doors. This year at any rate the skating craze has not led to the abandonment of the dance.
