DARTMOUTH OF THE FUTURE

One of the great advantages of a plan is that it usually compels intelligent departure from its proposals. Without something to depart from it is pretty hard to determine direction at all, and under such circumstances motion and muddle are quite likely to be synonymous terms.

In the beginning Dartmouth was saved considerable floundering by virtue of the operation of almost unavoidable requirements of symmetry. Dartmouth Hall unmistakably demanded the support of Thornton and Wentworth. After they were done, Reed took its place naturally enough as a corner barrier to the south. Later on, Rollins Chapel essayed, unsuccessfully, to balance Reed. The intention was good, but the result of trying to wed the Mediaeval and the Colonial in one building scheme proved here, as elsewhere, unsatisfactory.

Another saving element in the Dartmouth situation has been the Campus. It offers a commodious and obvious axis around which to swing a group of collegiate buildings. It would, indeed, seem pretty hard to go far wrong with such a balancing mass of lawn to give unity to the group as a whole. The old College must have been a much more beautiful, or potentially beautiful, place than most of us realize. There was the tree-shadowed green. On the slight eminence to the east of it rose the College. North, south and west were disposed the commodious academic homes, white clapboarded, green of blinds, and primly girt about with picket fences. The white church guarded one corner, the venerable hotel, of somewhat elephantine Doric magnificence, guarded another.

It is a matter of historical fact that plumbing in that day was confined to a feeble trickle that came through lead pipe into family cisterns, whence plentiful elbow exercise lifted it to the kitchen sink. The College green was allowed to go to hay each summer and round about it a scrubby hedge was permitted to sprangle. Upkeep was not all that might have been desired, but there were here, nevertheless, all the elements of the ideal academic community.

Modern improvements have disfigured some of the old-time dwellings; but most of them have been shouldered into oblivion by new lecture halls and dormitories. The circling of the College green has been accomplished. That being the case, the opportunities for mistake are multiplied to the point where the preparation of a reasonably comprehensive plan which will concern itself not only with the probabilities, but with the possibilities of the future has become a necessity.

Such a plan has been drawn by Mr. J. Fredrick Larson of the firm of Larson and Wells. It is not an official plan, in the sense of having been favorably adopted by the trustees, but it has been, examined by them, and is recognized as offering a satisfactory solution of a number of the most pressing problems of building placement which the College must meet in the near future.

The two controlling factors in these problems are ownership by the College of the Hitchcock estate, and the disposition of the sorely needed library. The normal assumption of a few years since was that the expansion of the College would be to the north, progressing from square to square along a wide lane bounded by Main and College Streets. Ownership of the Hitchcock estate deflects this expansion sharply to the west. The change in direction requires a substantial pivot. Let it be hoped that this may one day be found in an adequate library.

Such a building is the really dominant feature of the Larson plan. It is so placed as to absorb all of Butterfield for book uses. It dominates the entire square which it occupies. Unscreened it would dwarf both Webster Hall and the White Church, and its placement in a north and south axial line would throw quite into the shade the fine old group to the east.

For this reason, in part, the plan shows the library with its main face to the west, with a columned portico giving to the setting sun, and high steps from the top of which one can look across the undulating plain to the gash between two states, where flows the river,—and beyond that to the hills.

The outward view will be beautiful,—the inward vision, as one approaches Hanover byway of the Tuck Drive, should be imposing; for the great mass of the library will be the first to greet the eye.

The plan indicates a highly formalized arrangement of new buildings stretching west from the library, and constituting a kind of avenue well toward the sudden downward pitch of the plain where it bends to the river. The beginnings of such an avenue may quite probably be made. They will constitute a frame for the vista. Hitchcock Hall, shown on the plan in grayer tone, may perhaps be one of a group of four structures: a building for art and archaeology, a building for language and literature, a general recitation hall or a dormitory, and to the north of them a huge assembly hall large enough for the College and its friends, and fully equipped for dramatic presentation.

Whether or not beyond this point the jaws of the plan should open more widely than they are shown, and thus allow a wider landscape view and with it a somewhat more informal grouping of buildings, is subject for debate. My own present feeling favors a quadrangle, or series of quads between Tuck Drive and Webster Avenue, and a somewhat freer treatment of the territory between the Drive and the Cemetery property to the south. The ground is considerably more broken than the drawing would indicate, and the pine forest growth would, much of it, have to be sacrificed in completely fulfilling the scheme proposed.

But it will be a great many years yet before the College will thrust very far out into the Hitchcock estate. When the far venturing is made, the plan will be available to be followed or to be consciously disregarded.

It is probable that the next dormitory to be built, however, will be directly west of Hitchcock, constituting the second member of an attractive court of three. Another dormitory might supplement this group to the west. It will be noted that an extension southward from the second member of what may be called the Hitchcock dormitory group would make connection with an entirely new group of dormitories that would form a court-yard in conjunction with Massachusetts Row. Such a development, however, contemplates a great deal of land filling west of Massachusetts Row, the removal of some now existent buildings and some alterations in property lines. Its carrying out is likely to be delayed beyond the lifetime of most of us.

A need that must shortly be met is that of a new Commons building. A good many things have been learned since College Hall went up, and began, shortly after, to tumble down. We no longer expect such a building to work miracles unaided: but we know that no miracles can be worked without it, and college work demands miracles. Hence we must have a new College Hall with a dining room that will seat 1000 alumni or undergraduates—full or empty—and enable them to receive quick and adequate service. And the dining room must be so separated from the club quarters that the mingled and not always pleasant aroma of pie and vegetable soup will not dominate the New England atmosphere of the place.

The plan shows a most ingenious arrangement for linking club and dining hall by means of a central tower. Fronting the club would extend a huge brickterrace, a notable place of congregation for students or alumni.

The Hanover Inn is long since outgrown. It requires the addition of at least 100 rooms. If they could be added as quickly as was the shaded patch on the plan, there would be many more comfortable guests at Prom time and Commencement. But hotel building in adequate terms means an expenditure of not less than $600,000 as things are today. An enlarged Hanover Inn should be a hotel of quality. It may not be a conglomerate of cheap varnish and imitation marble. If the College is to offer hospitality, it seems forbidden to be either tawdry or inadequate. To be anything else has a way of being expensive.

Very much like the shadow of a great bird, the Alumni Gymnasium occupies quite a disproportionate share of space on the plan. The swimming pool wing is shown, matched by another extension equally large to be devoted to squash and hand-ball.

The relation of the gymnasium to the proposed Memorial Field is likewise indicated. Of the Field much has already been said and written. There is no need of adding more here. The College of today is in sore need of it. Without it there can hardly be any college of tomorrow.

The east side of the campus shows few suggestions of change. Culver is left intact. Bartlett Hall appears to be swallowed up in a great building that stops off the vista between Dartmouth and Fayerweather Row. There is a dream of a new and larger chapel, and of an additional medical building.

The line of buildings here grows thin along the edge of the Park. It extends as far north as can properly be contemplated in view of the sure development westward. To prevent its merely petering out, the great new chemistry building will be placed squarely across the line of vision. It will stop off the growth of the College to the north.

Take the 'proposed plan for the development of the college plant. Look at it from any angle, and it retains an aspect of balance and logicality. The various parts connect readily with one another. Each vista has its inevitable objective. The main paths of circulation throughout the whole plant are calculated with an eye to ready accessibility and all avoidance of congestion. These considerations are pretty sure proof of general excellence, even if there be opportunity for changes in detail.

At this point it is fair to query how much of the plan offered is concerned with the needs of today and how much with those of a very distant tomorrow; how much of the scheme contemplates a greatly enlarged institution, and how much only a more efficient one. In answer it may be said that if the major parts of the plan shown could .be carried out immediately, they would no more than fulfill existing requirements.

For example: Exclusive of space in Culver and Bartlett Halls, which are quite unsuitable, the College commands only 46 recitation rooms. During most of the morning hours these rooms are used to capacity and many recitations spill over into the lecture rooms. At least one more recitation hall is needed immediately. There should be two. The cost of each would be $250,000 equipped.

Including Topliff and Hallgarten there are 18 dormitories accommodating approximately 1300 men. In 1901, with an enrollment one-third as large, there were half as many dormitories. Unless Dartmouth is to be completely dominated by the life of the fraternity houses it must construct more dormitories.

The largest auditorium seats 1350 persons, which is several hundred less than the enrollment of the College today. It is of vital importance that all the students be able to get together simultaneously under one roof.

The Commons dining room will next year be too small to accommodate the freshman class. No attempt to care for upper-classmen can be made.

The library is of the vintage of 1885, against which special prohibition laws have long since been in force. In 1885 the total enrollment of Dartmouth in the academic department was 225. Books and students have since been added generously. The building remains much as it was. No wonder the walls of this ridiculous anachronism are cracked.

The chemical building, which is to be built whether or no, will replace an edifice that outdates the library by fifteen years. Biology occupies—or tries to —the same space in a college of nearly 2000 that it utilized for a college of 400. When Butterfield is absorbed by a new library, an additional biology building will have to be constructed, and to accompany it a building for geology.

To heat these various edifices the poor old heating plant must needs be enlarged. It is already overloaded. It needs a new chimney, new boilers, and new coal pockets : and unless these come soon the poor wheezy old thing may cease to wheeze some zero night, with expensive consequences.

And if the materials for all these immediately required things are to be transported safely across the river and deposited upon the Hanover Plain, there must straightway be a new bridge spanning the Connecticut.

This is Hot all of it either. Frantic department heads are now engaged in the hopeless task of learning each day afresh that there is no house room in Hanover for that needed instructor, his wife, his baby, and the hypothetical maid-servant. The College has done some house-building for its faculty, but it has not begun to meet the immediate and pressing needs of the situation.

The requirements that one might wish could be met next fall are approximately as follows. Their cost is likewise approximate.

1 Library $1,000,000 1 Commons 750,000 1 Hotel 600,000 1 Bridge 400,000 1 Chemical Laboratory 400,000 1 Dormitory 350,000 2 Recitation Halls 500.000 Housing for 8 families 80,000 1 Memorial Field 350,000 1 Heating Plant 100,000 $4,530,000

Add as much again for additional endowment needs, and we have need of a tidy sum. But if it were in hand, it is a fair bet that the program of construction could not be carried through within less than four years. There are limits to the number of workmen that may be cared for in Hanover, and hence to the amount of work that may be carried through in a given twelve-month. It is doubtful that the College could do much more than $500,000 worth of constructing in a year at present prices. Double the capability and there is a five-year building program ahead to take care of the needs of yesterday. As for the needs of the morrow—no college can think so far ahead as that.

A PLAN SUGGESTED FOR THE DARTMOUTH OF THE FUTURE

HOMER EATON KEYES '00 Business Director of the College