THE TIE THAT BINDS A COLLEGE CLASS

A REMINISCENCE

There Ere only six of us left, out of a class of sixty-five who graduated from Dartmouth College some fifty odd years ago. I don't think our class was any better than the average when we left college, but I do know that our fifty years of association has meant more to us than it has to most classes. I feel this so strongly that I am going to try to tell the alumni of the college some of the things which a class organization can do, or rather, has done.

Have you ever asked yourself this question — "HOW is a college class?" I remember at one of our reunions our Class President gave us his answer to this question, and I have always remembered it.

It is entirely an accident that we men are gathered here tonight. It is entirely an accident that we are this week celebrating our Tenth Reunion,— but it is not an accident that the Class of Dartmouth College is this week celebrating the Tenth Anniversary of its graduation, for from the moment when the continued existence of Dartmouth College was assured, it was absolutely certain that there would be a Class. At that moment a page was placed in the Dartmouth archives with the heading of our Class, and for over one hundred years that page remained blank, ft was not until September, that the names were inscribed on that page, and when they were written there, they were our names, and there they will remain during the rest of Time. We were brought together by Fate to become the Class, for which the college had waited for over a century. It is our duty, and it should be our pride to express our allegiance to Dartmouth m such substantial terms that the college and the alumni will never have cause to regret that we, and not some Class men happened to make up this Class."

It was with the feeling that our class as a unit had a definite position to win for the College in the world, that we left Hanover. Just how it was to be done we had no particular idea. We were fortunate in selecting for our secretary, Bill Jones. I think "lucky" is perhaps the word to use, because few classes of our time thought seriously about the selection of a secretary. He was just one of the officers of the class, and most of us believed that his was a mechanical job which meant simply keeping track of marriages, births, and deaths. Ordinarily we would have picked out some methodical chap whose brain resembled a filing system, and who would have felt honored by'being chosen. But somebody had an inspiration, and nominated Bill Jones.

Bill was one of those chaps who knows everybody in his class, and doesn't call a fellow 'Richardson' who had been known by the name of 'Smut' during the four years at Hanover. Then, too, he knew the weaknesses, and, better than that, the real character of most of the fellows. He had been one of them, and he knew the four years at Hanover better than most of the class did. As Bill told me afterward: "When I started to do this job I began to realize how big it was. I corresponded with the fellows at once, and I didn't let them get away from me. I had a pretty hard time of it at first, because everyone was trying- to make his way in the world, and while thoughts of Hanover were just as keen, most of the fellows were careless. They didn't answer letters; they didn't tell me when they were married; they jumped from place to place, — but somehow or other I managed to keep track of them. Of course I had to use a variety of ways to do it. Sometimes there would be two fellows in a town, from whom I couldn't get a letter. I would write to Art Brown and Pete Smith and send a copy of my letter to the other, telling him that I knew he would prod up the other fellow for a reply. They seldom said anything about it, but I usually got the information I wanted, by return mail. I'd lose a man for a year or so, but I never let up until I found him. I'd write the town clerk of the place he came from, the school where he prepared, find his relatives if he had any, — and when I did dig him up I'd go out and buy myself a real dinner for sheer joy."

Bill didn't stop with the graduates. He got after the non-graduates — men who had been associated with the class for only a part of their college course, and had dropped out for various reasons. Bill had a theory that these men would come to value more and more, as the years went by, their few months at Hanover. The Dartmouth spirit is so strong that it doesn't take four years to feel its influence. These men, he felt, if they were made welcome, would become real assets to the class and to the college.

Bill was right, for he got back into the fold fifteen or twenty men who excelled in loyal deeds some of our men who had regular degrees. He didn't call them "non-grads" in his reports, because he said that that term always seemed to him to brand a man with some kind of heresy for which he wasn't (responsible. Bill said he never knew whether to feel sorry or mad when he asked a fellow-secretary about a man and received the reply — "I don't know where he is. You know he never graduated." Bill always insisted that the class represented a family, bound by ties of early association at the best spot on earth, and the more there were who had the real Dartmouth spirit, the better for the College and the class.

Bill just kept us together during those days, and when our third year reunion came around we had a big bunch of fellows back at Hanover. We adopted a constitution which one of the farsighted fellows in the class prepared, and we arranged for a class fund — the first that had ever been established. We planned it on a basis of small contributions of a stated amount each year, so that (everybody in the class could participate and feel that he had as much to do with the fund as anyone else. I think this class fund helped hold us together more than anything else, because everyone took pride in keeping it up.

We appointed Duke Everett to take charge of the fund, and he did splendid work. In fact, the pride and joy in the contributions became so great through succeeding years that no dunning was required. Then, too, the secretary was relieved of the necessity of calling on the fellows for money and could devote his time to bigger things. These contributions of a stated amount were kept up for ten years. At the end of that time the men in the class were invited to increase their contribution, if they felt that they could, so that the class did present the college, at its twenty-fifth anniversary, with a very substantial amount.

Bill Jones served only five years, telling us at the end of that time that he had put his heart and soul into the work of secretary, and that he felt that a new lamp would burn more brightly. We knew what a class secretary meant when Bill Jones got through, so that when he nominated his successor we elected him at once. Bill had been wise enough to enthuse someone else with the work, so that he had a man all trained and ready for the task. John Osgood was the man, and he more than fulfilled expectations.

John had not been prominent in college, - in fact, he was rather shy and diffident. But he had come to realize more and more what college meant to him. I rather think that he idealized his four years in Hanover, and took up the work of class secretary in much the same spirit as a clergyman takes up the spiritual leadership of a parish. He felt there was a lot of good that he could do, and that he wasn't bound by limitations of creed or ritual.

Of course he wrote us when we were sick, and asked the other fellows to write us too; he congratulated us when we secured some worth while position; he wrote real letters of sympathy to the wives of men who died. When there were boys who were left without a father, he took them into the class, and in many cases he made sure that the class helped with real money where the need was urgent. He would call these the ordinary duties of a secretary, but I have talked with men in other classes, and I know that they are not generally recognized as such.

What John Osgood did was to make us into a real family, with ties of association that were stronger than ever before, and with a greater love for the College. He made us feel that we were one link on which the future of the College depended, and that that link must be the strongest in the chain.

There were no cliques in our class, because we were all one. When our tenth year reunion came around, we had the largest percentage of attendance of any class. This was not due to John's work alone, but the foundation that he had laid made it possible. Not only were the fellows back, but their wives and children. The class spirit was infectious, and many a wife who came to Hanover wondering whether she would have a good time or not, left proud that her husband was a Dartmouth man and a member of our class. John took care of that, moving swiftly from group to group, picking out the shy and retiring, and making them feel at home. Kinship with the class included the entire family, was John's idea.

I remember one fellow who lived near Hanover who didn't want to come. He thought that he hadn't accomplished as much in life as he should. On the second day of the reunion we sent three fellows to get him. They brought him and his wife back to Hanover, and everybody gave them a grand reception. From that time onward they felt that they were a part of the family.

John studied the class as a pastor does his flock. Every man has some hobby, some subject of keen personal interest to him. John knew all these hobbies so that he was in intimate touch with each man s home life. He knew how to appeal to each man to arouse the best that was ill him. "Everyone has a lot of good in him," said John, "and the sum total of that good is the treasure of the class. Anyone can find out the bad traits, but my duty is to find all the good."

Our last secretary was Dick Briggs. He served a longer time than any of the rest, because when he came to office the class had begun to experience the sad diminishment of years and as we survivors grew older we really couldn't have anyone but Dick. The recollection of his work is therefore freshest in my mind.

Dick Briggs felt that when a man becomes a class secretary he accepts a college stewardship: his own likes and dislikes, and personal feelings, must never interfere with his official duties. He felt that the class is the soul of the college. There may be organizations of alumni which represented other factors, but the heart throb of the college comes through the class organization.

Dick's reports were a source of joy to us all. We burned the candle very late the nights they came. It seemed as tho' we were talking with each and every one of the fellows of the class. We knew what they had done; what their families were like; and what they were thinking about. We knew when their boys were going to college, for Dick always had a list of those who would probably enter Dartmouth together, and he wrote them all telling them what other sons of classmates would be in Hanover at the time they entered, and so maintained their ambition to go to Dartmouth. There wasn't a boy in our class, if he went to college at all, who didn't go to Hanover.

I could tell many personal things about Dick's work, but there is only time for a few. When Ed Barrett was threatened with loss of sight, he was told that there was a doctor in Vienna who might possibly perform an operation which "would be .'successful. Ed took the next steamer, with his wife, facing the possibility of total blindness, and feeling that he might never again see his native country, his college, or his classmates. Dick arranged that a few of Ed's best friends should go down to the steamer with him and bid him goodby. Then he wrote every member of the class, telling him the circumstances and asking him to write a bright, cheery steamer letter to Ed. We all did it, and Ed's wife told us afterward that this did Ed more good than anything else which could possibly have been conceived.

Then there was George Peters, who hadn't amounted to very much since he left college. He had a fine brain, but his associations were bad, and his habits, too. Pretty nearly everybody had given him up, but not Dick. Dick talked with him, and finally when Peters was down in the lowest depths, Dick got him a job. He watched over him night and day. George Peters became one of the most respected men in his community, a most loyal Dartmouth man, and devoted to the class.

Perhaps Dick's greatest single act was his care of Richard Ward's son. Dick was one of our brilliant men, nationally famous, and loyal to his college and class. He died when comparatively young, leaving an only boy, with little or no money for his support and education. Dick wrote us all about it, and said in closing — "Richard Ward's son is our heritage. He must be a Dartmouth man, like his father before him. His future parent is our class, and may he never want for better." This privilege we gladly assumed, but it was Dick who supplied the human element. From childhood until youth, and from youth to manhood, Dick ever lent a helping hand. All that sympathy, sacrifice, and real love could give, Dick gave. — And yet Dick always said it was but one of the opportunities of a class secretary.

I might go on citing other instances like these, to show what it means to be a member of our class. We may have done something, each one of us, to help the other; but it has been our secretaries from start to finish who have given us the inspiration. If a man wants to do a tremendous amount of good in life, I don't think he can find any opportunity which offers a wider field than that of being a class secretary. If he feels that way, he will not only do a lot for the class, but even more for Dartmouth College.

The alumni of any institution are divided into as many units as there are existing classes. Some of these units are effective as a whole, and some are ineffective. Individual effort is never as strong as organized effort. If every class could have such secretaries as ours have been, what would it mean to Dartmouth College ? I know what it has meant to me, and to everyone else in my class. There is no greater position than that of class secretary, and there is none which is so little understood. No money can ever pay a secretary for his labor. His must be a service of devotion and love.