HENRY ROOD WRITES OF DARTMOUTH'S GROWTH

Under the title "A Tidal Wave of Undergraduates" Mr. Henry Rood has discussed in the New York Evening Post, the problem of college expansion. The author is well known in Hanover and lectured here recently. The article follows:

Four or five years have elapsed since William Chandler Bagley of the Teachers College stated in an educational journal that in all probability 1920-1921 would see a large number of colleges and universities in this country almost overwhelmed by young men and young women seeking entrance as undergraduate students. Dr. Bagley rendered this opinion after having made a nation-wide survey of conditions in secondary schools. For upward of a quarter of a century the number of public high schools had been steadily increasing — slowly at first, then with constantly increasing momentum — so that by 1916-1917 their pupils included thousands, a considerable proportion of whom were preparing for college. Other influences working in the same direction were the general prosperity of our people, who thereby found themselves enabled to aid their children to higher education, and the attitude of leading financial, commercial, and industrial concerns, the managers of which gave preference to college trained young men and women.

During the past six months reports from colleges and universities in various parts of the United States have indicated that Dr. Bagley's expert opinion is sustained by results. Princeton is among the more recent to announce that hereafter the number of its undergraduates must be limited — in this instance to 2000. It seemed desirable to select some typical American college and inquire into conditions surrounding it, in the hope of obtaining reasons for the great growth of undergraduates and of ascertaining in what manner this has affected the institution. The writer selected Dartmouth.

Once a Small College

Less than a generation ago the entire student body at Dartmouth numbered only about 400. Today it numbers between 1800 and 1900. Last September Dartmouth admitted between 600 and 700 young men to its freshman class, and was compelled to decline admission to more than 1600 others who wished to enter but could not for lack of accommodations. But a fact still more surprising was revealed to the writer during his recent sojourn in Hanover. It has been the experience of Dartmouth that approximately one-fifth of the men expecting to enter as freshmen file applications between September and January of the year previous, and that four-fifths make applications between January and the September in which they plan to commence their college course. In other words, of those planning to enter in this coming September, 1921, as freshmen, presumably one-fifth put in applications by January, 1921, and four-fifths will do so between the present time and next September. The writer understands that up to January, 1921, Dartmouth had received more than 1000 applications.

If the usual ratio continues, the coming autumn will see no fewer than 5000 young men from all over this country, and not a few from foreign lands, trying to enter the freshman class of this one college. At once two questions arise: What can the college authorities do in the matter? and Why should such a multitude of young men strive to effect entrance to a college situated in a remote region of New Hampshire, so far removed from any city that urban contact is impossible excepting when vacations ensue?

Survival of the Fittest

Regarding the first of these questions it may be said that Dartmouth authorities are endeavoring in every way to find room for as many young men of real promise as can be admitted and cared for. Instead of being raised to a point where none but the most brilliant students could meet them, entrance requirements actually have been made more flexible than heretofore, with the avowed purpose of not shutting out young men of real promise who have attended high schools the curricula of which are not wholly standardized according to ancient or outgrown measurement of values.

Entrance requirements fulfilled, the problem seems to be largely the selection of young men on the basis of character, integrity, industry, seriousness of purpose; in brief, on the basis of potential and probable good citizenship, using the term in its highest sense.

Why Students Go to College

As to the second question: Why are so many young men desirous of spending four or five years at Hanover, far from the lights and music of great cities, utterly removed from theatres, burlesque "shows," cabarets, and like supposed attractions for the average undergraduate? Students who were questioned replied that they knew they could obtain, at Dartmouth, scholastic training as thorough and as sound as at any other college. In addition, up there in the rigorous climate of granite hills and White Mountain depths, they found an interest in outdoor sports, winter and spring and autumn, practically universal among the student body and younger faculty men, to an extent that does not exist anywhere else on the continent. Photographs of snow-shoeing, skating, hockey, and long hikes up to the Canadian border, they said, have appeared by the hundred in Sunday newspapers, illustrated magazines, and motion picture films during the past six or eight years. And these had been a powerful incentive. Great admiration was expressed for President Hopkins, whose success is due in no small part to his experience in practical business affairs before he became a college administrator.

While facilities at Dartmouth are apparently taxed almost to the limit for good work and comfort, as yet that limit has not been reached. Possibly an exception might be made in regard to the college library, erected many years ago to serve an undergraduate body of about 400. Today it serves an undergraduate body five times as large, but only through utmost economy of space and ingenious arrangements whereby students may carry on necessary research and reference work. During the last 35 or 40 years its collection of books and manuscripts have increased to a point at which there is scarcely a square foot of unused space. If Dartmouth is to perform in future the great public service rendered in years gone by, when it had but one-fifth its present undergraduates, the immediate erection of a new and adequate library building seems imperative. — NewYork Evening Post.