President Nichols, the alumni bring you greeting and farewell.
Duringseven years you have maintained thehigh traditions of the line of Dartmouthpresidents. Stepping aside from a notable and rewarding career, you came tothe College as its chief administrativeofficer because you felt that here wasworthy work to do. Your part in thatwork, in your judgment, accomplished,you return simply and with quiet dignityto the earlier task, whose demand for youhas been increasingly insistent. Muchof what you have done for Dartmouthin your brief term is evident on everyhand; more awaits the tardy verdict ofhistory. Yet for you, perhaps, therecan be no greater satisfaction than in theknowledge that you have won the respect, gratitude and affection of the jealous brood of Dartmouth, who count younow and for the future as a chief amongtheir own.
The main compensation which the college teacher may set against the drawbacks of his academic connection is, of course, his contact with young men, and therewith, the knowledge that his living and thinking are directly and immediately influential in shaping the career of others. Upon his head there comes to rest, in time, some halo of intellectual authority, whose radiance warms him within as well as glorifies him without. In the passing of years, as he moves abroad, he encounters on every hand old pupils eager to greet him and to acknowledge in many friendly ways their obligation for intangible values received. In his loyal allegiance to his college there may often have been a strong element of personal sacrifice; but there has been also a soul's satisfaction.
With the administrative officer, except as his function is specifically to second the efforts of the faculty, the case is somewhat different. His reward must generally be the work itself. Few beyond a very limited circle know or care what that work means in terms of devotion to the institution; yet his withdrawal from it may make a gap well nigh impossible adequately to fill.
Such an officer is Mr. Charles Parker Chase, Treasurer of Dartmouth College since 1890, who will withdraw from his position on July first. Mr. Chase began his relationship with Dartmouth shortly after his graduation in 1869. He became professor of Latin; gave instruction likewise in Greek, and later in economics. Since 1892 his occupation with the treasurership of the College, and the presidency of the Dartmouth National Bank and the vice-presidency of the Dartmouth Savings Bank has precluded teaching.
Mr. Chase has been ceaselessly busy for Dartmouth, yet so modestly that the measure of his accomplishment is by no means understood. For those acquainted with the facts, however, it is difficult to imagine how the growth of the College since 1893 could have been accomplished at countless points without the aid of his sympathetic interest, unswerving devotion, sound financial judgment and shrewd foresight in all practical affairs. No one has cherished a vision of Dartmouth College broader than his, and no one has done more to bring his dream of realization. Time and again he has bridged impossible chasms for the College; and when they could not be bridged has uncomplainingly accepted responsibility. His, after all, have been the plans by virtue of which important properties have reverted to the College, and the Pine Park has been saved for permanent utilization by the community. He has been, for years, the animating spirit of the Howe Library.
What individuals owe him for unostentatious acts of kindness or for long and exacting service as confidential adviser is beyond computation. It is fortunate for College and community that Mr. Chase's retirement from his treasurership means not any weakening of the ties that bind him to Dartmouth and to Hanover, but only the laying down of burdens that must often have been most irksome.
The present method of choosing candidates for the position of alumni trustee grows each year more unsatisfactory'. Under the constitution of the Association of Alumni of Dartmouth College, it will be remembered, five candidates must be selected from whom the alumni shall choose one to serve during five years as trustee. In theory, of course, this is an admirable and thoroughly democratic arrangement. A great drawback, however, to its effectiveness is the fact that while there are to be found men of large ability and generous inclination who are willing to serve their College if asked, few of them are willing to subject themselves to the test of a campaign for the position. The situation has, at times, been met by selecting one obvious candidate and frankly requesting four others also to run. In due course the list of these martyrs grows short. At other times, there has been a contest, — sometimes bitter — from which no good has come.
Last year there was tried the experiment of having the Alumni Council act as a nominating board. The experiment did not obviate the difficulty; but it did bring face to face with it a permanent consulting body rather than an impermanent committee. The Council wishes to remedy the matter by changing the Constitution of the Association, so that instead of setting up five candidates the Council shall present one, who shall be ratified by the alumni, the alumni likewise having the right to name other candidates by petition.
The device appears to have the double advantage of avoiding unnecessary friction and waste of energy, while, at the same time, thoroughly safeguarding the right of free choice by the great body of alumni.
A considerable proportion of the population of Hanover is now engaged in the hopeful enterprise of transferring sections of well boiled front lawn to the family dinner table as a simultaneous means of landscape gardening, health stimulation and market economy. But the dandelions still raise their insolent blond heads among the grass, — spring's invading army, whose progress none can satisfactorily unstem. Speeding motors cast our hardwon highways to the breezes. Each turnpike blossoms with the unfolding beauty of bright-hued hotel signs. Standing with reluctant feet twixt chills of spring and summer's heat, Commencement is observable in the middle distance of the calendar.
When it arrives in the immediate foreground, it will produce a townful of extremely uncomfortable persons, who, somehow or other, will have a good time in spite of their sufferings. Really-some fairy godmother should come along with a magic wand to turn all our dormitories into palaces. Then everyone could be luxuriously cared for. Instead, a hardhanded truckman will, in most cases, perform quite the contrary function, leaving a denuded barracks for the entertainment of the elect.
The College Secretary sounds a note of judicious warning when, in extending an epistolary glad hand to the alumni in his Commencement announcements, he confidentially suggests that the accommodations offered are not of the most alluring. But at that he leaves much to the imagination; and it is, doubtless, well that he does; for the anticipatory vision of the alumnus about to be returning is likely, except in the presence of too horrible details, to be rosy. Why tell him that he may expect for himself and his wife, who has never seen the dear old College, one room with specifications somewhat 'as follows: ceiling; floor; battered remains of four walls ; two beds ; reasonable hope of one mattress; no chair, (bed to be used instead); one chiffonier, with glass much too high for the average woman; one packing box, which average woman may stand on in the process of investigating the mirror, provided combined family effort can move the box; for the rest, reminiscent odor of tobacco and its substitute, the college cigarette.
Yet such has been the fate of alumni and their wives year after year. They survive it, all of them; accept it in unrepreaching kindness, most of them; and come anyway. With few exceptions they are sensible enough to realize that, even in providing such scant comforts as they get, the impossible has been accomplished. It is whispered that some of those who have been dissatisfied in the past are contemplating the giving of a special endowment to enable poor old Alma Mater to take proper care of such a superior lot of sons and daughters-inlaw as are hers. But it will have to be something of an endowment!
