The program for the forthcoming
sesqui-centennial is thus far settled: there is a committee appointed. It consists, for the trustees, of President Hopkins, and Messrs. Streeter, Parkhurst and Brown; for the faculty, of Professors H. E. Burton, J. P. Richardson and L. B. Richardson; for the alumni, of Messrs. C. B. Little, J. W. Gannon, and N. W. Emerson. Mr. Keyes is acting as secretary and executive officer.
The committee has met and come to certain general conclusions which, in somewhat greater detail, will shortly be transmitted to the Alumni. The dates fixed are from October 18 to October 20. The first part will consist of an alumni celebration pure and simple: — Dartmouth night on the evening of the seventeenth; Outing Club receptions on Saturday, together with a football game and a revival of Wellman's famous old operetta The Founders.
Sunday will be marked by religious observances and by the arrival of delegates and guests from outside the College. On Monday will take place a great educational conclave in Webster Hall, preceded by an academic procession and followed by an outdoor luncheon. The afternoon will be occupied with important educational conferences; and in the evening a special dinner to delegates and guests will be given in College Hall.
Innumerable details are yet to be worked out; among them the simple problem of how to take care of returning alumni when the College and the town are both full of students.
It is now proposed to place cots on the Gymnasium floor and care for the sons of the College after the manner of homing sardines. Some of the real old grads will be housed by casting the real young undergrads out of their dormitory rooms to crawl in with their undisturbed fellows as they may. It will be a wise man who makes his arrangement now with some hotel outside of Hanover or who secures personal reservation with some private family in the village.
The above outline has laid no stress on particular orations, historical or otherwise. They are of course unavoidable, But a careful investigation has revealed one rather distressing fact; namely, that the College was so unprovident as to use up all its historic material in two comparatively recent celebrations: the Webster Centennial and the Laying of the Corner Stone of Dartmouth Hall. Add to these the retrospective eloquence poured forth at two inaugurations within ten years and the resultant exhaustion becomes clearly apparent. There remains Rufus Choate to whom, perhaps, full honor has not been done by his College; but, if an hour to Choate because of the coincidental centennary of his graduation, why not a day or two to Eleazar Wheelock?
It is a fair guess then that there will be nothing for it in the scheme of things except for the College to look bravely forward instead of proudly back; and, in so doing, to define if possible its place in the educational scheme of things, 10 accomplish this, some kind of viewpoint connected with the already traversed road must be established. But that is quite a different thing from the toilsome retracing of every step of the way.
The hot air party will have its innings without doubt, but the ventilators seem likely to tap a new reservoir.
The most striking item in the proceedings of the trustees at their June meeting is the vote of compulsory commons for freshmen. However surprising the action, it was not taken without long and careful consideration. There are two main reasons for it. The first has to do with what may be called the spiritual aspect of the College; the second is purely physical.
For some time past, the early pressure of the fraternity system has tended to break up classes into a number of sharply differentiated units. The greater the growth of the College, the more active the tendency,—and the more detrimental. Democracy at Dartmouth has never meant a dead level of accomplishment and reward; its strength has lain in such variety and number of intimate contacts among the undergraduates as have helped eliminate the barriers of snobbery and brings men face to face with one another in terms of manhood instead of caste.
Of late, it must be admitted, this democracy has been threatened, in part by the fraternity pressure above mentioned, in part by the mere size of the student body. Most American, colleges pride themselves on their democracy and are equally put to it to preserve the cherished characteristic. For years, Princeton has maintained a compulsory commons for freshmen. Harvard not long since instituted a freshman dormitory system which cares for both housing and feeding its first-year men. Conditions at Dartmouth should be satisfied by the provision of a commons only.
An aspect of the case other than that of preserving the College democracy is little less important. As the cost of board has gone up, the tendency of many an undergraduate has been to meet the situation by a constantly reduced standard of quality. The first things to go have been whatever few niceties may once have surrounded the process of his eating. Linen, such as it is, gives way to paper and oil cloth; the table and "service" eventually to the lunch counter. Getting "filled up" becomes the sole desideratum. This is frequently accomplished by gulping a hash sandwich at a shelf and emphasizing its deadly surfeit with an ice cream soda at the drug store.
The sophomoric interior may be able to stand this sort of thing, but it is certainly bad for freshmen. Most parents will probably be glad to know that their sons are spending their food allowance for food instead of for other things, less necessary to well being but, in the eye of the undergraduate, more important.
To the College, the task of'feeding its freshmen offers few joys. The cost will, of necessity, considerably exceed the income from charges which no one seems to contemplate above the figure of seven dollars per week, which, like the nickel car-fare, looks sufficient, but is not. Feeding and criticism, furthermore, go hand in hand, and the College is in for considerable free advice in the conduct of one more of its undertakings. Some sort of special dietetic supervision will have to be provided to insure a sufficient daily supply of calories and to guarantee that the more lately discovered vitamines do not escape without paying their proper toll. If due account of these is maintained from day to day only the best armed critic will dare to interfere; for to be bombarded with a reserve supply of calories is an experience not lightly to be encountered:
Just now, however, to the outside public the interesting phase of the case is democratic rather than dietetic. Says the Kansas City Star in an editorial of some length:
"The spirit of the times is running hard against the simple life in American colleges. The fraternity, the club and the social sets are obtaining a foothold even in Western colleges to a degree that is alarming to those who have given thought to the question. Modern conditions of college life are creating a class consciousness among students that makes for inequality of opportunity for the young men who cannot afford to go the pace.
"It was this condition which the trustees and faculty of Dartmouth met face to face at the meeting last week. It was decided that hereafter every student entering the Dartmouth freshman class must eat at the "Commons". "Commons" is the college boarding table. The rich and the poor must dwell together for at least one year, the first year, of college life.
" 'Give them a year in such close as- sociation', says one of the old college men, 'and the real purpose of the1 rule will be attained. During the first year of college life the young men develop the stuff that is in them. Under conditions that put them all on the same grounds, and that bring them together so intimately, the young man from the farm and the young man from the city will understand that they must, stand upon their own pegs without advantage to either. We can well chance the rest of the college years with such a start as that.'
"There is something in the action and spirit of Dartmouth that should not be lost upon colleges everywhere, not even in the colleges of the West. The spirit of the times which threatens the very fundamentals of Americanism in Dart- mouth, is not limited by any means to New England. False standards of living, superficial ideals of life, snobbishness, and class distinctions measured from the standpoint of money, are causing concern and anxiety to thoughtful men and women everywhere, and not alone in the colleges but in many of the high schools as well. It is a problem to be met yet, and it surmounts in importance many of the problems that have, up to this time, perplexed and occupied the minds of American educators."
The Kansas editor is pretty nearly right. The problem is a big and threatening one. Just now it is well that Dartmouth has tackled its own share of trouble while it was yet in the incipient stages. That the College is still sound, and that its old time spirit is a vital thing today finds evidence in a letter from a young graduate, a Y. M. C. A. worker in Poland.
The letter shows an extraordinary appreciation of the difficulties to be met in the Europe of today, and of the best means of meeting some of them. The closing lines are significant of the influences shaping the writer's character and controlling his vision. These are the words:
"Dartmouth is glorious. You know Dartmouth is not a college — it is somehow a crystalization of the best American lessons and traditions of democracy. I am using as concrete capital, every second of time I invested at Hanover."
In accordance with the policy which has held of late this issue of The Magazine constitutes a double number, serving for July and August as well. The next number will appear November first.
