THE NEED FOR UNUSUALNESS IN THE WORK OF THE COLLEGE

The nature of man is such that departures from the accustomed routines come only by effort and often with difficulty. We shrink from change; we argue for what is, and view with apprehension the possibility of what is not.

In the days last spring, early succeeding the declaration of war by the United States, when the nation as a whole had but little inclination to recognize the magnitude of the task to which it had committed itself, and had too great a disposition to interpret patriotism by sweeping generalizations, there appeared in the advertising of various great businesses the infelicitous phrase of "Business as usual". Of course, this was written with the best of intention; the fact simply had not come home to those responsible for this badly considered publicity caption that, in times so extraordinary, none of life's activities could that so much of industry and business as has been engaged in producing and creating a demand for luxuries or indigencies must transfer its genius to making and distributing merchandise of economic worth, or else release its labor and make available its plants for those who could and would do so.

There is perhaps not quite an analogous objection to the use of a like phrase in regard to the College; but nevertheless there is too much discrepancy between what, as officers and students, we ought to do, and what we have done to make it happy for us to assent without qualification to the familiar statement that "The College will go on as usual". I therefore wish, at a little length now at this first exercise of the College, to examine anew our problem and to discuss our work, Particularly, I wish to emphasize the need for unusualness in the work of the College.

In such times difficulties should be given consideration only for the sake of mastering them; and it is with this spirit alone that I would express the belief that much of the seeming failure of the College more completely in some respects to fulfill its whole function comes from the magnitude of its task, as compared with the tasks of other types of educational institutions. However much it may accomplish, much must remain to do!

The significant characteristic of the responsibility of the American college is its breadth. It is to the development of manhood that its purpose must chiefly be directed. It is perhaps fair to say to those critics of the effectiveness of college work, as compared with the more measurable achievements of university courses, that herein, in the less tangible and more broadly distributed requirements for developing the whole nature of its men, is found the magnitude of the function of the college as compared with the requirement to develop single attributes in selected groups, which is largely the only function for which the university assumes responsibility in its graduate work.

The college is insistent upon the development of mentality, because all human progress requires brains. Man himself is distinguished from the lower orders because of his mind; and the difference between races of men of least development and those of highest is measured by the extent to which ignorance has been eliminated.

It is impossible, therefore, to conceive of any sense of obligation existent within a college that should not recognize as its primary responsibility the stimulation of intellectual processes among its men, not largely for the inherent worth of these as detached from the rest of life, but because of the dependence upon these for value of all other attributes of life. There is no conception of manhood possible that does not start with the mind.

If we stop here, however, good may not have been done, and even injury may have been worked. If the college were to ignore its other responsibilities, it would be possible for it to become an instrument of positive harm to the state by adding keenness of intellect to men of weak moral fibre. But, without supposing this to be a grave danger, the college work is futile, and therefore wasteful, if it fails to accomplish good. Mentality may be cultivated for self-satis-faction, and it may be hoarded as truly as gold. The college like Dartmouth which strives to typify the spirit of service, has no place for the student who wishes an education simply to enhance his own contentment with life. Education is a tool, which, if not used, is as useless as the mill-wheel which never turns. Likewise such a college ought to have no place for the teacher who is willing to assume no other obligation toward the future of his students than to give mental potentiality. It is the remembrance of the necessity for the acquisition of manhood within the college that gives us the standard by which to measure the accomplishment of students and college officers alike. Purpose must be added to the character of college men.

There is a necessary distinction to be made between mentality and intelligence for work such as ours. It is not the possession of brains, but the use of them, that demonstrates intelligence; and its presence cannot always be determined superficially. What appears physically to be a great frame that bulges out the clothes of a man, may not be muscular development, but simply fat. The ruddy glow of the cheek may not be health, but disease. So the brilliant mentality which is shown by biting wit, or barbed cynical retort, may be directed to no constructive effort to build up good, and to no destructive zeal to destroy badness, and thus by its emptiness of purpose demonstrate its lack of intelligence. No truer comment on this point has been made than Gerald Stanley Lee in his book "Crowds"; —"Why bother to tell people to be good? It bores us. It bores them. Presently we will tell them over our shoulders as we go by to use their brains. Goodness is a by-product of efficiency."

The college, likewise, under its new and greater obligation imposed by the unusualness of the times, must, to far greater extent than ever before, give attention to the formation of habit. Knowledge to which but few had given attention formerly is now becoming general, in regard to the laws of habit and their importance to accomplishment; how in the individual they either become the accessory to success, or the agent largely responsible for failure. The football coach has shown us in play what is now being shown in serious phase by the methods of military training, that definite action to a given end in time of stress can only be insured by the cultivation of habit to the point where doing the right thing is automatic. This is shown in its most obvious form by the perfection of play which marks the final game of the season, or in the subordination of all personal impulses in front line trenches, as men go "over the top." It is shown as definitely, if less obviously, in the lives of men who go steadily from positions of power and Snfluence to greater ones. The steady "self-command, the ability to meet trial without flinching, the courage to face disappointment without weakening, the sense to remain humble in success,—in short, all attributes of "bigness" in men —depend in large degree upon the habits of self-control, which can be best acquired in youth, and which, if not formed then, are acquired only with the greatest difficulty.

I wish that every college man might, early in his course, read Professor William James' lecture on "The Laws of Habit". He says, "We speak, it is true, of good habits and of bad habits; but, "when people use the word 'habit', in the majority of instances it is a bad habit which they have ill mind. * * * All our life, so far as it has definite form, is but a mass of habits,—practical, emotional, and intellectual,—systematically organized for our" weal or woe, and bearing us irresistibly toward our destiny, whatever the latter may be. * * * The great thing in all education is to make, bur nervous system our ally instead of our enemy. It is to fund and capitalize our acquisitions, and live at ease upon the interest of the fund. For this we must make automatic and habitual, as early as possible, as many useful actions as we can, and as carefully guard against the growing into ways that are likely to be disadvantageous. * * * Of course, this has its good side as well as its bad one. As we become permanent drunkards by so many separate drinks, so we become saints in the moral, and authorities and experts in the practical and scientific spheres, by so many separate acts and hours of work. Let no youth have any anxiety about the upshot of his education, whatever the line of it may be. If he keep faithfully busy each hour of the working day, he may safely leave the final result to itself. He can with perfect certainty count on waking up some fine morning to find himself one of the competent ones of his generation, in whatever pursuit he may have singled; out. Silently, between all the details of his business, the power of judging in all that class of matter will have built itself up within him as a possession that will never pass away."

I have been speaking of what the college should do; and someone may say with truth that I have not clearly apportioned the responsibilities among the various constituent groups that compose the college. I have no desire to do this. In times of such world strain as this, privilege is reckoned in terms of how much we can do to make things right, and not how little. We all alike are here because, for one reason or another, it has been deemed that our obligation to the civilization of future years can be met as advantageously by our presence here in preparation for assuming burdens of the future, as by the alternative of entering the battle line in support of all for which we wish civilization to stand. We cannot, however, be forgetful today of those whose places with us are vacant that they may offer themselves for the immediate work that needs must be done. We little deserve to share the name of Dartmouth, made prominent in service by patriots of old, and given added value today by these men of the College who have gone out from us, if we fail to prepare ourselves to maximum degree to guard and advance that which they shall save. Shall there, then, be any querying as to whose zeal should most work to make our years together most worth while?

The charter of Dartmouth College provides that the administration and faculty shall be elected for the education and government of the students; and could it be imagined that students in such a time should be impervious, or calloused to conditions in the world, I should expect the element of government to be made more prominent in the College than for many a day that is past. But likewise I assume that men who come to College now as students, under the shadow of the greatest tragedy the world has ever known, come with a seriousness of desire and determination to improve opportunities, and to avoid waste of advantages, such as we have known little of heretofore. It is a co-operative task that lies before us. to make the College unusual. It is one to which we all alike, I believe, will give the full vigor of our strength.

The process by which the College has been accustomed to develop manhood has been justified by its eventual results, rather than by promptness in accomplishing these. The intelligence which college work should inspire has been too leisurely sought. The habits formed have not infrequently been handicaps to overcome in later days. 'Vacillating impulses have been tolerated in lieu of well considered purposes; and the development of character has not rarely been held a question of remote moral obligation, rather than an intimate essential of any complete manhood. How little, in such respects, we wish the College to be usual, and how much it devolves upon us all to strain that it shall not be!

If the uneasy desire which every man has, I believe to do something more than is at hand to do, can be brought definitely to bear at this point among us who represent the home guard of Dartmouth men, then indeed the College will have kept faith with those who have gone out, and will have rendered her acceptable service ,to the needs of the country at large.

THE DARTMOUTH GROUP AT THE FIRST PLATTSBURG GAMP

Address of President Hopkins at the Opening of Dartmouth College, Sept. 20, 1917