Mr. Kimball's comprehensive and sympathetic account of his well-loved friend,
Edward Tuck, which appears in this number of THE MAGAZINE, will be welcomed by Dartmouth men. They have seen and heard much of Mr. Tuck's generous deeds,—particularly as they have affected his College and theirs. Of the modest personality behind his countless manifestations of wisely directed and often statesmanlike philanthropy, they have known far less than they wished.
Much as Mr. Kimball tells, he must, of course, omit a thousand details,— some of them peculiarly characteristic. An engaging quality in Mr. Tuck is his unfailing thoughtfulness in small things as well as in large. When the Pope portrait of Webster, begrimed and damaged from long neglect, was brought to him from a Paris suburb, his connoisseurship immediately recognized its quality; his thoughtfulness dedicated it to its rightful place in Dartmouth College. Similarly the department of French in the College has enjoyed tokens not only of his generosity, but of his abiding and keenly alert personal interest. And many an unpublished gift of his has helped the College in an emergency.
To Dartmouth men whom the fortune of this war has carried to Paris Mr. Tuck has appeared as something very much more than a great benefactor of the College; for to them, wayfarers from the distant hills, he has shown himself a hospitable and indulgent friend; —and this when his mind has been occupied with the direction of important personal benefactions in France, and with the consideration of affairs of international gravity. An incident, little known, but worthy of knowledge, is connected with Mr. Tuck's assumption of duties in connection with the American University Union in Paris. When first asked to undertake them he was most reluctant to add another burden to those already too heavy for his strength. Assured, however, that by accepting service as chairman of the advisory committee of the Union he would be really helping Dartmouth, he abandoned reluctance in favor of the College welfare. Such a spirit permeating all of Mr. Tuck's good deeds makes them doubly significant.
President Hopkins has met the fate common in this war to the recognized expert in a peculiar field. Few men in the country are possessed of his understanding of both the theory and the fact of the employment problem. And since the application of such understanding is one of the vital considerations in the successful prosecution of the war President Hopkins has been virtually drafted for service in Washington.
He is attached to the staff of the acting Quartermaster General, the function of whose department appears to be to provide every form of army supply and transportation except that of weapons. Since the processes thus involved are fundamentally industrial the nature of the aid which the President may render becomes fairly manifest.
Very quietly he has gone about this business, and there has been little publicity connected with his going. In this he has displayed his usual modesty and discretion. However great the prejudice in favor of College presidents may be at the National Capital, in the long run each one who goes thither will make or break on his record for actual accomplishment under most difficult conditions. Hence the less said byway of laudatory introduction, the better for all concerned.
The duration of the President's stay in Washington is, further, beyond surmise. He will probably remain so long as he can be of actual use. In the meantime he is keeping in close touch with the affairs of the College, whose administrative staff on the spot is, by the way, as large as was considered sufficient to look after our institution of 857 men in the fall of 1904.
Commencement is booked for May 25, 26 and 27 this year. In deference to the word of the hour it may as well be called an "intensive" Commencement. Certainly, to accomplish the usual amount of proper celebration, events will have to be pretty skilfully packed in, and that, of course, constitutes the quintessence of intensiveness, and is therefore commendable.
There seems no good reason why the alumni who can arrange to return should fail to do so. Certainly the College never stood so in need of its alumni as now: and never did alumni more need to ex- perience contact with the reviving spirit of the College. And the time of year should prove attractive. By then the highways are usually safe for motor traveling, and the country, itself, hereabouts, is at its loveliest.
Of course the crowd will be less than usual and for that reason can be better cared for. This will be a fairly safe year for bringing the family and for planning an extra excursion over Decoration Day.
As for the Commencement entertainment, the alumni will have the forenoon of May 25 for their annual meeting and for witnessing a game of baseball. Class Day will be observed in the afternoon. What evening entertainment will be offered is not yet determined. Sunday will be devoted to the Baccalaureate and to class memorials of one kind and another. The Commencement exercises will fall on Monday and will follow their usual course, with a noon luncheon to the alumni in College Hall and probably a dance in the evening for the sake of men about to enter the service.
May time Commencement will after all be not very different from Commencement in June. It will be worth attending anyway.
The omitting of holidays and vacations and the holding of uninterrupted College session from February to late May seems sensible in theory and likely to prove worth while in fact. Either way it was a nearly unavoidable move. The morale of undergraduate bodies is not high today. Disintegrating forces are at work which gain acceleration with every recess or holiday that brings the students into closer contact with the whirl of big events. They may not yet be ready to enlist: they cannot very well enlist except as aviators; but they are anxious to roll up their sleeves and begin to do something. Just what they will or can do seems a matter of some doubt. The College has sent to a dozen or more agencies, governmental and otherwise, a statement of the number of students and teachers who might be available for special work during the summer, with a request for a report on the opportunities that may be open. The response does not imply ungovernable eagerness for such aid as those to be released are likely to offer.
Judge William Martin Chase retired last October from the Board of Trustees of the College. At that time he was in feeble health. Within the past month, word of his death has come. There is a very genuine satisfaction in the thought that, at the time of his retirement, he who had wrought so long with quiet faithfulness should have received from many sources words of affectionate recognition such as are usually held unspoken until too late to serve their best purpose.
