President Hopkins' recent visit among the alumni has proved most gratifyingly successful.
The one drawback appears to have been the necessity for curtailing his trip to an extent which made the furthest points of contact Chicago and Minneapolis. Reports from the cities where he was able to appear, show record-breaking attendance of alumni and an enthusiastic welcome accorded to the man and to his message.
The theme of his message is printed elsewhere in this number, in the form of an abstract. It is worthy of careful perusal; for it is a statement of policy. The function of Dartmouth College is, according to the President, the turning out of well rounded men,—men possessed of character, health and brains. Just how he proposes to achieve this end, he does not state; but he implies that the machinery for the work consists primarily of a sufficient faculty vitally endowed with these very qualifications which are to be transmitted. And he points out that this machinery can not work without alumni help. It all sounds simpler and easier than it is. The program is so clearly defined that the far fling of its boundaries is not immediately manifest.
What the President says of the size of the College will arrest everyone's attention. THE MAGAZINE seriously doubts that it will arouse any considerable alumni opposition. There are many, indeed, who would gladly see the policy of restriction more emphatically stated. Comments the Lowell CourierCitizen, editorially: "The growth of the College has been a satisfaction and an inspiration to its sons—but it is well to recognize that it is high time to make the equipment square more nearly with the demand put upon it."
It is to be noted that the clear implication of the President's statements, as of the editorial which they inspired, is that any limitation of numbers will be in terms of limitation of endowment and equipment, and not in terms of a theoretical ideal of what should constitute a College enrollment. To. protest against such a policy as unduly restrictive is to protest against simple common sense. Dartmouth's income-bearing endowment per student, and its income from all sources per student are both below that of most institutions at all pretending to its grade. If the College owes an educational duty to the public, by the same sign the public owes a financial duty to the College. Until the latter is fully met, the College can hardly do better than to concentrate on the perfect accomplishment of the sufficiently comprehensive task now before it.
That alone calls for additional productive funds of not less than five million dollars, - sufficient just about to double the present endowment. It has taken the best part of a century and a half to bring the present resources together. Accretion will doubtless be more rapid in the future; yet to an institution of Dartmouth's very respectable size, large gifts are now more likely to come in recognition of an undertaking really well in hand and clearly outlined than of a striving whose effectiveness is constantly being diluted by a mistaken sense of universal responsibility.
One of the least heralded but most creditable happenings of the College year has been the recent exhibition in. Robinson Hall of the work of the Dartmouth Camera Club. When the Hall was erected, provision was made in the basement for photographic development, and for the getting together of the brethren of the tripod. It was, however, some time before demand met the supply of quarters. Within the year, partly through the ever ready encouragement of the Reverend John E. Johnson, partly through the steadily applied organizing power of A. B. Street '18, a vigorous camera club has come into being.
Of the high grade of work done, the photograph herewith reproduced is a sufficient example. The Camera Club itself, as an effective, working organization, offers one more testimonial to the constructive usefulness of Robinson Hall.
The resignation of Mr. Cavanaugh as Dartmouth football coach has not been unexpected. Two years since, it was a well known fact that he had begun to feel that, in his devotion to Dartmouth athletics, he was unduly sacrificing a growing" legal practice. His experience and history have been those of most college men who, except on a foundation of medical science, follow the avocation of athletic coaching. Occasionally a rare individual, possessed of peculiar gifts of organization and administration, builds round himself a complete athletic system and thus makes his work a life profession. But, in general, the college-bred coach reaches a time when the meticulous exactions upon mental and physical vitality which his responsibility entails, prove too great a burden; and he turns to other means of livelihood. The wise man is he who does not too long postpone the change. Apparently this is Mr. Cavanaugh's view. If reports are correct, he will take; up energetically his law practice in his home town of Worcester. Any coaching that he undertakes will be confined to the immediate locality and to times least calculated to interrupt the major occupation.
In this statement may be found entirely sufficient reasons for Mr. Cavanaugh's resignation. He has served the football interests of Dartmouth longer than almost any other coach in the history of the College, and at an age which ordinarily would have presaged a briefer term. That fact, in itself, constitutes ground for pardonable pride on his part. Of the man who coaches Dartmouth football teams the impossible is expected quite as a matter of routine. Mr. Cavanaugh did not achieve the impossible; though once or twice he came near it. As is natural under the circumstances, his greatest success came as a climax of the earlier years of his operations. No individual can indefinitely keep the keen physical edge necessary for one-man coaching that is to win all games.
Some newspapers have been making a great hullaballoo over Mr. Cavanaugh's action, professing to find in it evidence of a deep laid and sinister plot. Mr. Cavanaugh's accomplishment and reputation entitle him to protection against insinuations of this kind.
He has had a long and unusually successful career as an athletic coach; he has standing as a lawyer. His mental powers are acknowledged by all who know him. That he has the wisdom to turn them unreservedly to the law before there is any generally perceptible waning in his athletic renown should be a source of gratification to those who hold him in highest esteem. If any have urged that course upon him, they have shown nothing short of the most valuable friendship.
But that is Mr. Cavanaugh's personal concern. Among Dartmouth men he has many warm admirers. There are not any who do not wish him well; not any, it may be hoped, who do not wince at the unfortunate way in which his resignation has, in some quarters, been interpreted. He can scarcely avoid being hurt by it,
Such an unnecessary by-product of the event is most regrettable. Yet further discussion can not help the situation. Whatever the temptation to talk, Mr. Cavanaugh has maintained, thus far, an admirable reticence. Of this course THE MAGAZINE can show no higher approval than by following suit, a procedure, by the way, which it earnestly recommends to all others who have at heart the interest of the persons most concerned.
Gray Knapp has occupied a position in the administration of the College since his graduation in 1912, when President Nichols chose him as his personal secretary. Later he became secretary to the College. In spite of the pressure of outside interests, which, for his own welfare and theirs, have, during two years or more, demanded his undivided attention, he has stuck unswervingly by his College post until, a period of transition past, his services to the institution could better be spared. He has now resigned in order to devote himself entirely to business affairs for which he is unusually well qualified.
This loyalty which has characterized the recent time has been; throughout, a feature of his relation to his work. To the men as to the institution that he has been associated with, he has given a whole hearted, undeviating and uncomplaining service. He has carried, as a secretary must, a vast load of extremely varied responsibilities. As not a great many do, he has carried it extremely well. Aside from the routine too, he has put through several new and important enterprises that have redounded to the benefit of the College. In the arrangements for the inauguration of President Hopkins his aid was invaluable.
A good citizen, a genial comrade, a very true friend, he carries into his larger venturings the universal well wishing of Dartmouth folk.
A considerable group of alumni and of new and old friends of Dartmouth spent Washington's Birthday week end in Hanover. They report having had a good time, and having re-engaged accommodations at the Inn for a year hence. Their coming constitutes an historic event. For alumni visitations are; usually confined to times when accommodations are taxed to their utmost and more than human ingenuity is required to provide mere bed and board, without any attendant comforts. Now the winter houseparty idea has been tried and has proved successful. It is not necessary that in future such congenial gatherings should be confined to Washington's Birthday. There will in fact, another year, be a definite attempt made to establish a series of week end rallying celebrations round which different groups may congregate for a good time in the shadow of the College.
Out of this kind of thing is bound, in due course, to grow a permanent non-academic colony in Hanover. The time for it is ripening. Just how far it' has progressed will be indicated by the response to the advertised sale of the first considerable piece of Hanover residential real estate which has, for some years at any rate, been publicly placed in the market. The older places in the heart of things have been pretty well taken up by the fraternities. The fate of property too far out to be of interest for student use will be watched with considerable interest.
