UNDERGRADUATE DRIVE NETS $22,000 FOR MEMORIAL FIELD

With the completion of the two-day "drive" for undergraduate subscriptions to the Memorial Field fund, the plans for the new playing ground have been considerably advanced. The total of undergraduate contributions and pledges amounted to something over $22,000, an oversubscription of $6000 of the sum asked, and the interest and enthusiasm of the students have encouraged the committee in the hope that the alumni will contribute with equal zeal.

According to the present plans the Memorial Field will take in the tract of land to the east of the present oval and provide room for three football fields, three baseball fields, a new track, jumping pits, three hockey rinks, and 11 new tennis courts. The entire tract will be drained, graded, and fenced, and supplied with proper approaches and grandstands sufficient for the accommodation of the increasingly great crowds which flock to Hanover during the football season. A concrete grandstand seating 5000 people will be built on the west side of the football field and so constructed that it may be extended and enlarged if necessary.

The need of the Memorial Field in order to provide for the proper functioning of the compulsory recreational athletic system has been best stated by President Hopkins in a booklet published for use during the undergraduate campaign. The President writes :

"Among the many additions to the plant of the College which are desirable, there is none which would so fittingly serve as a memorial to the Dartmouth men whose lives were given in the war as would a great recreational field such as is contemplated in the plans being urged by the Alumni Council.

"It is generally conceded that the outdoor life of the American people, and the interest of the American youth in sports, were large factors in developing the fibre of the armies which went abroad. There would seem to be a definite appropriateness in emphasizing this phase of American life in any project which should be advanced as a memorial for the Dartmouth men whose lives were lost in the Great War.

"The College is assuming each year a larger responsibility for increasing the store of health of its students who are healthful, and of correcting the cause in the case of men who lack complete health. It is for such a reason that the College has made obligatory its system of universal recreation for the under classes. The full effectiveness of such a system, however, requires such an addition to the resources of the College as can be provided only through the great Memorial Field project.

"Fulfillment of the plans for such a field is indispensable to the rounded development of the College purpose."