The retirement from the Board of Trustees of Judge William Martin

Chase deprives the College of the services of a most able and indefatigable worker in its behalf. Through the twenty-seven years of storm and stress since 1890, Judge Chase has been a member of the Board. During a great part of the period he has acted as Clerk and as General Counsel, in both of which capacities his unfailing accuracy, his sure knowledge of procedure, and his profound understanding of the law have constantly proved invaluable. His "Manual for the Use of Trustees and other Officers of Dartmouth College containing the charter of the College and of Moor's Charity School, together with extracts from instruments of gifts and of trust funds, is one monument to his devoted patience and care. His volumes of flawless Trustee Records constitute another. The time and thought which he has applied to unraveling legal knots for various officers of the College no man can ever estimate. The labor has been great, its value beyond measure. But it has been done, as must be the case, without wide knowledge of the accomplishment, and with scarcely the reward of adequate thanks.

By nature and training conservative and exact in all his ways, Judge Chase has been a wholesome influence during a period of notably rapid growth and expansion in all aspects of Dartmouth. It has been part of his task to make sure that these things should be soundly in accord with the legal foundations of the College and that at no point should considerations of opportunism outweigh those of consecutive policy.

Fearlessly honest and plain spoken in the face of wrong or error; generously kind and appreciative in all his human relations, Judge Chase, now in the eightieth year of an active and useful life, is a venerated and well-loved figure. His respite from many labors is well earned, but his wonted presence at Dartmouth will be none the less sorely missed.

Dartmouth's football season has been a gratifying one. Its course and outcome have not been such as to rouse unalloyed enthusiasm among the undergraduates, who, naturally enough, are concerned primarily with the immediate joy of victory or gloom of defeat and are not inclined to cogitate very much on a season's by-products. In a year like this, however, scores are of very small account, victory and defeat are of small account, all-America elevens and expert ratings of teams of no account whatever. The by-products are the only things that matter; and for Dartmouth most of them have been excellent.

In the first place, there was the fundamental decision that a varsity team is not necessarily a standard thing—to be accepted and recognized if achieved, and to be disavowed if satisfactory material and. training are lacking—but that it is a group representative of the athletic abilities of the student body at any given time: hence bound to vary with varying conditions. In this there is good sportsmanship and good sense; for emphasis rests on the sport rather than on its participators; and a new issue is met squarely on its merits.

The temporary cancellation of the freshman rule is likewise praiseworthy. The rule never had much in practice to justify it, and in so far as, this year, its observance meant the maintenance of special training apparatus, it was little short of obnoxious. By bringing all forces together, Dartmouth has turned out a football team fully representative of a college almost all of whose experienced athletes have gone to war. And the expense has been but a fraction of that incurred in years past. No one would hold a brief for disorganized athletics. If organized athletics were to be carried on, the process could hardly be simpler or more sensible than that which has obtained.

And in the team itself there has been evident a spirit which to the observer interested in by-products is worth strings of uninterrupted victories. Not for years has a Dartmouth team played more snappily, showed more initiative, waged so clean a battle and talked so little. It has been overmatched in weight, in experience, in skill and strategy; but never once surpassed in valiant determination and the indomitable will to win. In the long run these are the things that count.

What is the mysterious "continuous session" concerning which the faculty has reported and the Alumni Council resolved and nobody seems fully to understand ? Briefly it is this: The Dartmouth faculty was asked to investigate the educational feasibility of carrying the College in continuous session throughout a year divided into four., quarters of approximately eleven weeks each, as opposed to the present practice of two semesters of eighteen weeks each. The faculty reported that such a system is feasible. It went further, and stated that its adoption would be for the best interest of the College; and having so done, presented the statement as a recommendation to the Board of Trustees. Meanwhile the Alumni Council, having access to the faculty report, voted disapproval of its conclusions and so informed the Board. That body, very wisely, has taken no action.

A digest of the continuous session, or four quarter system, appears in THE MAGAZINE for August. It discloses a two-fold aim: first, to conserve time by enabling a man to obtain his degree in three years, rather than four, by means of continuous application unhampered by long and debilitating vacations; second, to conserve effort, by enabling the man who must work during one quarter of the year, in order to maintain himself during the other three, to choose the quarter likely to yield him the richest experience and the largest financial return.

No one is likely to quarrel with this worthy intention as such. The educational service is probably one that should be rendered somewhere. That it should ever be universally rendered is a matter of grave question. That it can be rendered at Dartmouth without destroying those qualities in the life and spirit of the place which constitute its most distinctive and valuable influence, is by many very seriously doubted. Others hold such doubts to be born of conservative misapprehension.

THE MAGAZINE believes that this is not the time or the place to debate the subject at length. The College has other and more pressing problems demanding immediate, unified thought and effort on the part of all concerned. If let alone long enough, that of the continuous session will solve itself. If the war drags on there may be stiff work in maintaining any session at all. When the war is over, the policy of the college of the humanities may have to encounter such new and strange difficulties as to necessitate reconstructions at present quite undreamed of.

Are we on the verge of a vast and far-reaching deliquescence of civilization similar to that which marked the coming of the middle ages; or, just behind the war clouds, is there? shining the sun of an immediate and brilliant era of renewed human progress? Who will venture to prophesy? Who then will say what preparation for the future should be made beyond the conserving of strength, the performing of the daily task, and, above all, the guarding of the altar flame against the coming time when paths shall open and the torch bearers return to replenish fire waning or perhaps extinguished?

Just as THE MAGAZINE goes to press the Dartmouth community is shocked by the sudden death of one of its bestknown members, George Ray Wicker, professor of Economics. Professor Wicker had been a member of the Dartmouth faculty since 1900. From the first he gave himself with unstinting vigor and enthusiasm to his work. Possessed of unusual abilities as a teacher, he exercised them to the full until he built up for himself a wide reputation as a stimulating influence among young men. Few who have been connected with the College have ever had closer personal contacts with so wide an undergraduate circle, or could so well claim to have developed among the group a special discipleship. His death in the early prime of life, and after an illness of but few days has deeply touched innumerable hearts.