COMMUNICATIONS

BOSTON, MASS., October 29, 1917

EDITOR DARTMOUTH ALUMNI MAGAZINE:

I wonder how many of the alumni of the College realize the charm of a fall vacation in Hanover. Most of our memories are grouped about the Winter Carnival, Commencement time, and Dartmouth Night.

To my mind a better, time to visit Hanover is during the first few months of the college year. If you want a thrill of days gone by, you get it then. You feel the real college atmosphere. The freshmen are there, with their green caps, learning how to cheer and how to sing. It isn't a question of what one can find to do, but rather how many things one has time to do.

After you roll up from the station in the. bus and get settled in Hanover Inn (which, by the way, is the best conducted inn this side of Switzerland), you have just time to go down and watch football practice. You are sure to find someone there to watch it with you—Dr. Kingsford, Dean Laycock, Tib, Archie Ranney, or other worthies of days gone by. Then you come back to the Inn, and you are always late to dinner because you meet someone on the street or in the lobby whom you want to talk with.

In the evening you generally go to the movies nowadays,—and if you haven't been to the movies in Hanover, you don't know what real movies are like. You are surrounded by students, who insure you against any trouble in following the theme. Smacks from every side emphasize the romance of the reel, and groans and hisses follow the villain's every act. It isn't a riotous scene, but you recall the days when Dr. Gile was summoned to bring Little Eva back to life. You not only see the movies on the stage, but you feel the acting of everyone in the audience. When that is over, you hang around at the Inn talking with somebody, so that the clock has gone far on its way toward morning before you realize it is bedtime.

If you are an early bird, you meet "Jigger" Pender at eight o'clock on the golf links, and get in your exercise while the day is young. If you want to sleep, you get a front room where you can see the fellows going to chapel, and sink back in your bed with sheer content, knowing that you haven't got to run across the campus to be there before the bell stops ringing. The rest of the morning you spend in watching Delta Alpha stunts; in going to the library to find some things you " have always wanted to look up; in getting your hair cut; or waiting in the sun on the lawn for the morning paper to arrive.

After lunch you have to decide among several things. If you really must play golf, perhaps you will be lucky enough to get the President for a partner, or Charlie Proctor, or, if you are out to try your mettle, you can challenge those who manage the Inn, namely, Perry Fairfield and Lon Gove. Playing golf at Hanover isn't just simply hitting the ball—it includes looking out over the hills and seeing the wonderful scenery which appears on every side; the rapidly changing foliage, the bright red of the maples, the richness of the oaks and poplars which are still green.

If you want to explore the hills farther, you can take some of the trails, and there is a new one now just beyond the Athletic Field; or else you can get an automobile and journey up to Lyme or1 down to Windsor. There are so many places to visit you hardly know which one to select.

Then, of course, there is football practice, and you can go every day, or just pick those days when there is a scrimmage. The track team is limbering up, and there are fellows playing soccer. The tennis courts are all filled. There is a class baseball game on the campus. You don't just know where to stop, or how long to stay.

Then evening comes, and you think of the number of people you want to call on. You get really to know the Dartmouth faculty, and you talk of the problems of the College and the joys of the College. A week passes before you know it.

Quite likely you will have opportunity to attend a mass meeting—and anyone who thinks that the Dartmouth spirit is not what it was should attend a football mass meeting. There's a cheer every three minutes, and the freshmen are told that upon them depends the success of the season. They are told how the whole College went down to the June, to see the team off at three o'clock in the morning when it played Syracuse —that win or lose, the Dartmouth spirit never dies. You don't wonder that Dartmouth men are loyal; and, after all, it isn't the successful team, but the spirit back of it that makes Dartmouth what it is.

Another week passes before you realize it, and after a long walk over the hills on Sunday, you decide to attend vespers once more. Instead of a dozen fellows in the choir, you see the whole Glee Club, rolling out the old anthems with a volume which you never heard before.

There is one thing about a vacation in Hanover which cannot but appeal to1 the business or professional man, and that is that he forgets all the cares of the outside world and becomes a part of the academic life of a big institution. It is a world by itself. He grows young again, and appreciates the heritage of his early days and realizes again the joy and pride which is his as a Dartmouth man. If he takes his wife to Hanover, as he should, then she, too, becomes a member of the Dartmouth family. She appreciates the health and strength of the life, and wishes for her children the same traditions which their father had.

Consider, every one of you who are planning your next vacation, whether you are not missing one of the greatest privileges which you have—to go back to Hanover and renew again your old associations and avail yourself of the opportunity to see the college in its everyday life, and to breathe once more the air of the North, and the spirit of the hills of New Hampshire.