CLASS OF 1888
The thirtieth anniversary of a college class is not likely to be sensational. Nobody suggests organizing an amateur baseball game. There is no disposition to "dress up." We are willing to parade to the athletic field and, on Commencement Day, at least to the front door of the College church, but we are a bit startled to find how near we are getting to the head of the line. We gave the College yell once—the real one, the true Indian war-whoop, that has rhythm and swing to it and does not sound like a dog's bark—and two "townies" who went by remarked on "the funny noises those old fellows make," so we retired quietly to the easy chairs on the porch of the Commons, and ruminated.
Can it be that we are already "old fellows"? Some of us are doing big work. There is White, helping President Hopkins at Washington, and Cate, making a minefield that will reach clear across the North Sea, and English helping whip a great railad into line with Governmental control, and Walker editing a national newspaper at the Capital. Others are doing great things in quiet places—Clark and Blake as country ministers, Pattee interpreting the immortals in a country university, and doctors—so many of them that no fellow dares to come back to Reunion looking yellow, for fear he will have to face a united diagnosis. But already Forbush and Charlie Williams have three grandchildren, and the class photograph is full of pretty girls, grown up, and when the class president asked the whole class to stand in honor of the fathers who have given sons to the country's service, there were thirteen of us who can wear the badge with the azure star.
It was a quiet Commencement, and we did not wish to make it noisy. We were never so proud of Old Dartmouth. "Ninety-five per cent of the class of 1918 will be in service by next fall," was a message that reassured us, if any of us needed reassurance. They have indeed "kept a watch, lest the old traditions fail."
Nineteen men of the class of 1888 gathered at Commencement. The number was doubled by wives, sons and daughters, and daughters-in-law. The time was spent wholly in conversation. Hanover at Reunion is the one place in the world where nobody cares what you've got, only what kind of a fellow you are.
The Lord has let a number of us have high-powered touring cars, so we spent Sunday at Strafford, where lives George F. Chandler, the town clerk, a classmate with health somewhat infirm.
We brought several boys with us whom we entered in the class of 1928, for we do not intend that Dartmouth shall fail of our apostolic succession.
