Due to a fancied isolation,

more traditional than actual, Hanover and Dartmouth have rarely had an opportunity to extend a welcome to associations for their formal meetings. It is therefore all the more gratifying to announce that early in September next the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests, together with cooperating societies throughout New England, will hold its annual meeting under the auspices of the College. The purpose of this Society will find cordial appreciation among Dartmouth men. We pride ourselves on being an outdoor college, in location, sport and sympathies. The College Grant is one very tangible reason for our interest in the utilitarian side of conservation and the Outing Club is a sufficient reason for our interest in its aesthetic and moral aspect. Through the courtesy of NewHampshire Forestry, the publication of the Society, we show in our frontispiece a section of the Outing Club Trail towards its northern end. From our viewpoint on a spur of the northern slopes of Mooselauke the direction of the Trail can be traced through sunlight and shadow until it turns abruptly to the north into the deep pass of the Franconias. Part of Kinsman Notch, that comprised in the Lost River district, is already the property of the Society and an attempt is now being made to acquire the balance, that in the immediate ' foreground. An organization that is working so effectively for what we all desire will be assured of a warm welcome in Hanover. The meetings of the Society will be open to all who are interested in forest preservation.

In his recent swing, round the circle, the President encountered face to face not less than two thousand alumni, something better than a third of the entire graduate 'body. To them, at first hand, he was able to impart a conception of the policies of Dartmouth and a confidence in its leadership. For an institution situated as is Dartmouth and with a development written, to a large extent. in dots and dashes, such personal contact between President and-alumni is indispensable. Without it as a substitute for the necessarily infrequent visits to Hanover on the part of the alumni, the vital interest which is built upon knowledge would rapidly fail.

But the completest sympathy is impossible without visualization. Twentyfive years ago Dartmouth College was a very unimpressive looking institution. Its pretensions were as modest as its appearance. A good many men of that time and of years preceding have not seen the College since they graduated. Its tremendous growth is totally beyond their comprehension. So, too, is the great measure of its needs. To many a one of the earlier vintage the statement of present College expenditures doubtless sounds almost sinfully extravagant.

An illustration of this is to be found in a letter that is part of the archives of the alumni gymnasium campaign of 1909. It was written by a member of the Class of 1845 now deceased. Having been goaded by various letters from importunate collectors for the gymnasium fund into serious misgivings relative to the College, he addressed himself to Professor E. P. Sanborn, who, at the time, had been dead for nearly twentyfive years. The letter reads as follows:

"April 8, 1909

"PROF. SANBORN, "MY DEAR SIR,

"I have been annoyed by receiving copies of the 'New Gymnasium News,' and now comes a long typewritten letter from a self appointed 'committee' begging for contributions from us 'old fellows' to help put up a building costing $125,000., 1/8 of a million. I am anxious to find out whether this scheme, which seems to me for many reasons inexpressibly foolish, is approved by the Trustees, President Tucker, faculty or any responsible backers.

"These young men have undertaken a gigantic task far beyond their strength and the sooner a stop is put to their personal appeals to the old-time alumni, who do not enthuse on the project,' he better. Out of my poverty I did help build Webster Memorial Hall, 'also to rebuild Old Dartmouth Hall, but this call does not appeal to me in the least

"I thought I would drop these few lines into your envelope hoping that you might find time to help me out.

"Yours very truly,"

At the first reading it seems amusing. The second and third make it less so. Here was an aged alumnus, so far removed from knowledge of intimate Dartmouth affairs that he was ignorant of the death of one of the best known of its professors, who yet had, "out of his poverty," helped in the later building enterprises of the College, and was now anxious as to his real duty in the face of an incomprehensible appeal.

The College would indeed be fortunate in the possession of more men of such sensitiveness. The member of the Class of 1845 may have disapproved of the proposed athletic establishment; he would, without doubt, have been a sturdy supporter of the Alumni Fund. That Fund is the constant challenge to every Dartmouth alumnus. While by no means the measure of each man's loyalty, it is the measure of alumni loyalty as a whole. That is what makes rather humiliating the fact that last year the alumni of our old and new rival, Brown University, beat the Dartmouth Alumni Fund by some thousands of dollars, and some hundreds of contributors.

At the present writing war between the United States and Germany seems inevitable. Its coming will make sacrificial demands upon this country far beyond any present computation. It well may mean the emergence or the disappearance of the people of the United States as a free nation. All our theories of a polyglot democracy will be put to the test, our weaknesses exposed, our latent strength tried to the uttermost.

There is, today, reassurance in the passionless resoluteness with which the issue is being faced. The three dreadful years, now drawing toward a fourth, if they have not taught us preparation for war, have none the less convinced us of war's terribleness. We meet it, undisguised with the trappings of vainglorious music, as men must meet any inescapable calamity,— unflinchingly and unafraid.

The time is one neither for boasting nor for exhortation. We recognize that, apparently, the day has gone when America can hope to aid a stricken world by well intentioned precept. Our right to leadership, if it exists, must find its measure in our willingness to sacrifice for and with others; and, at the end, in our ability to prove that victory without revenge is a nobler thing than peace without victory.

In the' past, the nation has called on Dartmouth men, not in vain. Those of the here and now understand and cherish the old tradition. Today when it is the world that calls they will not be found wanting.