First Dartmouth Governor of New Hampshire in more than thirty years John H.
Bartlett, of the Class of 1894, elected to succeed Henry W. Keyes, enters upon his high office at a time in the history of the State that will put him and all the sources of his education to severest test. To rise to an emergency and to gain common action in the face of dangers patent to all demands less distinguished abi-lities of insight and leadership than to learn the lessons derivable from a period of stress and to carry through their application when public enthusiasm and responsiveness have become relaxed. That, however, is the task that faces Governor-elect Bartlett.
He gives promise of complete fulfillment. Born in New Hampshire, educated in its most venerable College, a lawyer by profession, a business man and administrator by instinct and force of circumstances, he has the requisite knowledge of conditions, and the requisite technique for dealing with them. His past history indicates his possession of the sense of conviction, the force of character, and the ability to deal with men which, beyond knowledge and technique, will be essential in the years to come.
The College is glad that the Governorelect New Hampshire is a Dartmouth man. The era of reconstruction is at hand, an era calling for the patient, indomitable, self-sacrificing, missionary spirit that brought Dartmouth first into being, that has supported it since, through days of poverty and doubt, and that has inspired all its great alumni in their noblest effort and worthiest achievement.
From a great variety of sources: personal letters, news clippings, hearsay, is derived the mass of war material offerred to the alumni in this number of THE MAGAZINE. It has been accumulating since July. Hence much of it is long since out of date, and needs to be supplemented by subsequent information. Some of it is, perhaps, inaccurate. But, taken as a whole, it constitutes an amazingly interesting bit of documentary evidence as to Dartmouth's participation in the world war. The lists here published cover every imaginable branch of the service, and nearly every grade. In war as in peace the men of Dartmouth have shown themselves versatile, responsive and resolute.
The S. A. T. C. is in process of dissolution. By mid-December it is expected that the students constituting the organization will have been demobilized and that the College will be in process of a hurried housecleaning preparatory to a precipitate return to the status quoante. So sudden a reversal of gears working with steadily accelerated speed in one direction is certain to cause considerable confusion and some damage. Students and College both will experience it. Some boys who had accepted a previously unlooked-for chance for higher education will suddenly find themselves compelled to forego the elusive opportunity. The College will find itself floundering where it had felt assured of reasonable support.
This is true of Dartmouth. It is perhaps truer of some other institutions. For Dartmouth, having in the fall steadfastly refused admission to any and every student who could not fully meet its standard entrance requirements, does not now find itself burdened with groups of high school and near-high-school boys to whom it owes obligation by virtue of previous indiscreet cordiality. Its confusion and loss will therefore be reduced to a minimum.
But all this aside, the College regrets the demobilization of the S. A. T. C. and the consequent abandonment of military training and discipline. And this not because of any unshakable belief in the supreme efficacy of military things; but because the experiment of combining them with a college curriculum, or its approximation, has been so briefly under way that no conclusion as to its relative success or failure may be drawn.
Whatever drawbacks and disadvantages are chargeable to the S. A. T. C. Dartmouth has already suffered. What might prove to be counterbalancing advantages there has been no time to derive. The College has, further, been in a favorable position to assume the solution of the complicated problem of offering instruction, housing and subsistence to student soldiers under joint academic and military control. Location had, long since, forced upon it the necessity for providing equipment to meet every conceivable demand: and for developing adaptability to satisfy the inconceivable ones as well. It had. in short, a plant and an organization. At various times during the past six months subjected to rigorous governmental inspection as to its educational handling on one side and its physical operation on the other, it has received ungrudging praise for the high quality of both.
The College has been fortunate, too, in the character and abilities of the Commandant placed in charge of the military training, and acting in general as the immediate representative of the United States Government. Major Max Patterson, himself a teacher as well as a soldier, brought to Dartmouth a sympathetic understanding of academic standards and ideals together with sure powers as disciplinarian and organizer. His hearty cooperation, and that of his staff, with the officers of the College have eliminated administrative friction and have enabled the devotion of all available forces to the successful accomplishment of a difficult enterprise.
Under the military regime the Dartmouth undergraduates have, for three months past, been making steady improvement in appearance, bearing and manners. While their studies have suffered somewhat from the handicaps of limited time and cramped quarters, slight readjustments in drill requirements would probably have corrected that difficulty. A full year of similar student progress at Dartmouth and elsewhere would have done much to purge college life of its foolish student conventions and to strengthen those fundamental institutional traditions of cultivation, self-mastery and poise that have of late been too frequently neglected or forgotten. From the present partial attainment backsliding will be easy. Hence there is small likelihood of achieving, through war time effort, a permanent mark of consequence as a point of departure for future progress.
These are the might-have-been aspects of the case. In so far as practical procedure is concerned, if the College could, almost over-night, adjust its curriculum and its plant to meet the needs of the S. A. T. C., it should as quickly readjust to the more familiar old-time basis. Financially there will be some kind of governmental recompense, payable doubtless within six months. This should cover expenditures already made. It will hardly provide a floral demonstration along the path of the remaining College year. That, however, is an outcome that the colleges, like all individuals and institutions that undertake war work, had to face from the beginning and must now accept philosophically as part of the common lot.
The recent Trustee meeting, notes on which will appear next month, was important. For one thing, out of it came definite statement in recognition of Dartmouth's unenviable position in respect to faculty salaries,— something that likewise occupied the attention of the Council. A beginning, too, was made in the direction of increasing them. It is but a beginning, however. The war has brought the teacher into his own. Competition for good specimens of the tribe promises to be keen for sometime to come. Business, too, is claiming many a former dweller in the academic close. For several years Dartmouth must undertake to increase the size of its faculty in proportion to student members and to re-inforce its vigor by offering a reasonably attractive prospect of ultimate reward for valuable service rendered.
The arrangements made for accepting once more in the undergraduate ranks returning soldiers and sailors is both sensible and considerate. There is good ground for allowing a year's academic credit for an equivalent period of special service under the government. In everv instance such service has implied close and studious application to some particular subject. It has served to stimulate and mature the intellect. While it can not be considerel a complete substitute for college training, it may, nevertheless, prove far more illuminating in its effect upon a man's entire collegiate experience. As a device, further, for encouraging the return of men who might otherwise drift permanently from college environment it is worthy of commendation.
The same is true of the alterations in calendar and curriculum that will enable a student to begin work in either January or March without loss of time. The event may prove the advisability of adding for this year a summer term for the special benefit of those who feel that they can allow no interval of months to delay the completion of the requisites for a degree. On this, however, judgment may be reserved until the exact degree of demand is better known. In any event, the possibilities seem such as to preclude arrangements for an old-time summer session, or for utilizing the plant for aestival meetings of one kind and another. Indeed, if the welfare of the plant were chief consideration, the entire summer would be given over to the process of rehabilitation necessitated by the severe wear and tear of the past two years.
An interesting letter from Lord Dart mouth has just been received by THE MAGAZINE telling of his participation in the installation of Lord Robert Cecil as Chancellor of the University of Birmingham, which occurred on the twelfth of November. In the procession, following representatives of various colleges and universities, came in order, the Town Clerk, the Lord Mayor, the Lord Bishop of Coventry, the Earl of Dartmouth, Sir Maurice Hankey, Lord Phillimore, Lord Moulton, the Right Honorable Austin Chamberlain, Mrs. Millicent Garrett Fawcett, Sir George Buchanan, the Italian Ambassador, the French Ambassador, and the dignitaries of the University.
Lord Dartmouth's letter is as follows
November 19, 1918
SIR :
I enclose a programme of the Installation ceremony of Lord Robert Cecil as Chancellor of the University of Birmingham. It may not be uninteresting to your readers to know that I was privileged to take part in the procession, attired in the robes presented to me by Ex-President Nichols.
The installation took place on the day following the signing of the armistice, and the appearance of a Dartmouth gown in the very centre of England seemed to me to be a very appropriate indication of an alliance that made the signing of the armistice possible.
Yours,
DARTMOUTH
