Dartmouth College has entered upon

Dartmouth College has entered upon another year of activity with what seem the fairest of hopes. There is no apparent diminution of prestige. The enrollment is indicative of sustained confidence. Material and intellectual progress alike seem to have been satisfactory. All of which is intended, not as vainglorious boasting, but as a recapitulation of the facts for which we may be truly thankful.

Even those of us to whom the college was early known as still the "little college" of Webster's famous and heartmoving plea have become reasonably accustomed to thinking of the modern institution as something more ample. The change has stolen upon us ere we were aware, perhaps; but every one by this time knows that it has come, even if himself a persistent absentee from Hanover and conscious only by hear-say of the altered circumstances. It may well be our first suggestion as we open the year that as many alumni as possible, especially those who have never seen Dartmouth since the last days of its littleness in size, make pilgrimage this year to Hanover and become acquainted with the college that now is. "Better is the sight of the eyes than the wandering of the desire."

It is not so much a duty as a privilege to renew personal acquaintance in this way with the college. The alumnus, if he owes a duty in this matter, owes it primarily to himself and only secondarily to his alma mater. One who has not seen Dartmouth since, say 1892, will find in a visit the material for a sensation only to be described by the word astounding. Why not make trial of it and see ? The experience is bound to be pleasant and it can hardly help making an already good Dartmouth man into a still better one.

It is, of course, too early to speak in detail of the entering class, save as the president always used to do when bidding us welcome in the old days with the time-worn jest that, judging by what our parents had told him, the freshman class to which we belonged was the most illustrious that ever crossed the threshold of the Old Chapel. Dartmouth is trying out a novel system of selective, admissions and the worth thereof is only to be estimated by what the classes thus admitted do with their opportunities in the long run. If there is anything in logic, it would seem inevitable that the classes admitted on this basis should average somewhat better than of old—making all due allowance for the natural heedlessness of youth and for the fact that any of us, were he to enter college at 30, would get infinitely more out of it than he could be expected to get at 18 or thereabouts. These young men are still subject to all the traditional handicaps of immaturity and inexperience, even in the best possible estate. But a class chosen on the basis of what it has been doing in routine work covering a period of recent years, plus certain other factors bearing on the individual character of its members, seems to us more likely to acquit itself with credit than a class chosen at haphazard, or on the results of a single set of examination papers. We shall see what we shall see. Thus far the selective admission system appears to be justifying itself—not sensationally, but surely.

Next to the opportunity of preaching a farewell baccalaureate — or perhaps even ahead of that task — we should rate the opportunity of preaching a baccalaureate of welcome to newly-matriculated students. To be sure the preacher's task is in some ways always a discouraging one. Much good seed falls on stony ground, and of that which finds lodgment in a fruitful soil it is the fate of much to be choked by those tares of which the parable spake. Nevertheless there is an incurable itch in all of us to give the neophyte the benefit of our judicious advice and there is an undying necessity for doing it in the hope that by due diligence one may save some. This task falls, of course, upon the president of the college rather than upon the editorial department of a magazine for alumni — and right worthily is the task performed by President Hopkins in his successive addresses of welcome to entering classes.

"Truth cannot be found by men unwilling to weigh,the merits of any opinion but their own. Reality cannot be known by men who will accept no data except those conducive to their ends. Intellectual power cannot emanate from minds unused to thought. Yet mental discrimination, mental honesty, and mental power, are all indispensable to him who would be largely useful in such a time as this. May those qualities be ours."

These words, occurring near the end of President Hopkins' opening address at the outset of the present college year may well give us the opening for a brief discussion of what he had to say. It was a well considered thesis on the general topic of liberal education, sober, thoughtful and suggestive. It lacked the arresting quality of the president's opening remarks a year ago, when he challenged the educational world by his memorable remark that "too many men are going to college". There has not been the outburst of criticism that attended that very pithy and very true statement. This year's quasi-inaugural lacks the dramatic appeal. It is none the less a cogent summing up of current tendencies which deserves to be read and pondered. It seems to us not so much an address to students as to educators.

All admit, without bothering to pursue the matter into minute dissections, that the aim of education is to "enhance the ability and the will to use the mind". That is an easy formula glibly parroted by the million. That comparatively few really hunger and thirst after truth is half realized, if at all. That truth is likely to be assumed to be "my doxy" rather than "the other fellow's doxy" one sorrowfully admits. This seems especially to be the case with self-satisfied "Liberals", of whom the president speaks in direct and forceful language when he says of them that they seem bent on exploiting in their own interest the field of liberal thought. Let us quote once more: —

"This professionalized group, arrogating to itself all virtue and good intent, and denying these qualities to all others; patronizing those who will not whittle their conclusions to the exact dimensions of the prescribed code; manipulating intellectual processes and capitalizing dogmatic assertion as preferable to accepting the conclusions of logical thought - this group is doing more to breed suspicion of and hostility to true liberalism than is being done, or could be done, by all available forms of reaction if combined in militant array. Ill - nature, intellectual arrogance and churlish intolerance are but sorry concomitants of any movement; but they are singularly out of place and tragically harmful in association with any movement which desires to be recognized as liberal. The mind tolerant of the opinions of others and open to conviction in the presence of new knowledge is more liberal than that of the bigot, regardless of the beliefs of either."

The illiberality and narrow-mindedness of such as professionalized Liberalism has long seemed to us to be the worst foe that a lover of truth has to face. That which is an undoubted sin in the hidebound conservative is no less a sin in the headlong radical. President Hopkins' address amounts in part to a sober plea for steering a middle course between Scylla and Charybdis; and the pilot must have for his guide that alertness of mental vision which a properly liberal education alone can give him. It is no easy matter to pick up the buoys and channel-marks of Truth. One has to be on the keenest watch for them - and one has also to be wary of false beacons along the shore.

Truth, we may assert, is inalterable. This is not always easy to believe, since man's conceptions of the truth vary so wildly from epoch to epoch. One is therefore urged to acquire the disposition to seek it out, actively and incessantly, rather than adopt the receptive attitude of waiting for it to come unsought, in a spirit of mere friendliness. We need the truth, God knoweth; but this need is no security for our anxiously desiring and actively trying to find it. Colleges are not to be warranted to teach us what it is. Their endeavor is rather to arm and equip our expedition for the search. One may be taught in forthright training schools what men now think the truth is, and may be obligated within limits to conform thereto. But a college is not a training school, in intention, in spirit, or in method. It is place where men are taught how, rather than precisely what, to think — in the hope that they will be moved to desire the truth and will find themselves adequately accoutred for their quest. It is an elusive Grail.

Knowledge has indeed become so broad and so specialized a province that no individual can well master more than a fragment. Education has sadly suffered from the passion of modern pedagogy to teach all men a little of everything. That is no longer possible and is no longer wise. We may profitably postpone specializing until the proper time — which will come after we have laid the deeper foundations which will support the structure of special knowledge. That is not necessarily true which is novel, and that is not necessarily false which is old—and the converse of each proposition is equally valid. "Get wisdom; and with all thy getting get understanding!" He who masters the "why" of things is likely to be that much extolled personage, the Man Who Knows.

It is in order at the opening of a college year to remind the alumni body of its integral membership in the college family and of its opportunity to bear a helpful hand, not only in that inescapable and tiresome matter of money, but also and no less importantly in the matter of personal service and interest.. That there is sure to be a recurrent need every year for financial backing we all know, and therefore it is needless to stress it here. What we frequently forget is the fact that money isn't everything and that an alumnus may easily, if he will, do a great deal for the college by just keeping in touch with it and fully alive to its doings. It is with this in mind that we have above spoken of the desirability of making personal visits — for those to whom the greatness of the New Dartmouth is thus made real can hardly help being strengthened in love and allegiance thereby. This MAGAZINE does its best to spread abroad among the graduates of the college a knowledge of the work that the college is doing; but it recognizes to the full the limitations under which it labors and it most earnestly desires to call to its aid every assistance that circumstances allow. It would greatly appreciate a steadily growing list of readers, not for the mere gratification of those who write its pages but for the general good of our great and honorable fellowship.

This MAGAZINE is published for the alumni. It has a distinct mission to fulfil. That mission is not to gratify the self-esteem of its editors, or to make money, or to' do anything in the world save inspire among those who belong to the fellowship of Dartmouth men that measure of cordial and living interest in their college which shall best weld the whole body into an efficient and active organization. The college is more than its professors, students and trustees. It is an entity spreading throughout the land, and wherever a Dartmouth graduate happens to be, there also is at least a portion of Dartmouth. Mind you we do not intend to ask the impossible. No one is demanding that every alumnus bestow on the college unreasonable amounts of attention, or that he make his devotion a matter of incessant and conscious thought. It is only hoped to make real, within those limits which are easily possible for any man, the thought that Dartmouth did not cease to be an element in his life when he departed from Hanover after receiving his degree, and that something—over and above the sending of an occasional cash donation - is involved in his status as a Dartmouth man.

The opening of a new year at Hanover almost invariably brings with it something of added interest in the shape of additions to the visible college, such as new features of plant and equipment involve. This fall sees the completion of a fine new dormitory located in the Hitchcock estate near the Tuck Drive, and the Stadium (so-called, although it is perhaps not as yet exactly a Stadium) which is to play so notable a part in Dartmouth's future athletic history. The lack of a proper place for seating spectators at Hanover games is now byway of being removed by this addition to the facilities of the Memorial Field and it is confidently to be predicted that the effect on the football situation will be salutary in an especial manner, because of the possibility of handling infinitely larger crowds of on-lookers than was possible before. Hanover is not so located as to make probable the gathering of such huge multitudes as attend notable college games in the more populous cities, but it is increasingly desirable to be able to seat very considerable numbers in comfort for the witnessing of athletic sports on the home grounds. It is also among the possibilities that with the increment of the Stadium more and more of the Commencement and other festivities will centre around this portion of the college property.

The new dormitory will revive discussion, presumably, of the plan to segregate, in an area of their own, the senior class. This was mooted a year ago on the theory that, if any one class has to be given residence at some distance from the main college body, it would better be the class which has been longest on the campus than the class most newly arrived there. Harvard has elected to segregate the freshmen. Dartmouth has proposed to adopt a similar course with those about to graduate. On the whole it seems to us that latter plan has the more to commend it. The seniors have had three years in the heart of things and are soon to separate forever. The three lower classes may preferably remain down-town, so to speak, and work their way toward the inevitable period when they, too, will become the experienced and acclimated seniors, with but a few brief weeks to stay and appreciative of a last year in relative seclusion, apart from the madding crowd.

Judge Hough '79, as chairman, Professor John King Lord '68, John Abbott '90,. Henry K. Urion '12 and A. L. Priddy '15, constitute a committee which is now earnestly canvassing the situation raised by criticisms of the current method of selecting alumni trustees. The personnel of this committee seems ample warrant for expecting a sensible and sane solution of the problem. It is not the purpose or desire of the MAGAZINE to indicate any special preference among the various suggestions made for the betterment of the existing plan—if indeed any be required. Recommendations already made by the executive committee of the Secretaries Association will be recalled as having been referred to this committee for more mature consideration and a report is expected during the present year. That the interest of alumni everywhere is very great is evident from the earnestness with which various suggestions have been advanced, the idea apparently being that, while the college at present gets admirably competent trustees and is excellently served, it is still possible that a more obviously democratic nominating system could be devised which might promote a more lively interest in the annual balloting. Not the least of the questions involved seems to the editors to be whether or not there is really a defect to cure." We have intimated in past months some apprehension lest in the zeal for enhancing the appearances of greater democracy the college might forfeit something of still more value to itself. However, with so competent a committee, no such apprehension is reasonable. A wise decision is assured — and there is no doubt that the general bodies of alumni to which the report will be made will stand entirely ready to receive and consider with appropriate respect whatever recommendations the investigators may agree to offer.

Future gatherings at Hanover and elsewhere will miss sadly the familiar figure of the venerable Gen. Joab Patterson, recently deceased. Gen. Patterson who will be remembered as the marshal at the Centennial and Sesqui-centennial of the College was also an active force among the class secretaries. In spite of great age and increasing infirmities he retained the liveliest personal interest in the collegiate affairs and was almost invariably to be found in his wonted place at meetings of the Secretaries' Association, where he took a prominent and helpful part. Invariably gentle and courteous, he was universally respected and beloved. The college organization is the poorer by the loss of this valued friend and associate.

A word of heartfelt appreciation is due the late C. P. Chase, long time treasurer of the College and well beloved by every alumnus who was so fortunate as to have a connection with Dartmouth during his long and useful life in Hanover. His years of activity were many and his death which occurred last August will be sincerely deplored by all, but especially by those hundreds of us who were privileged to know him well as a personal friend. Two generations knew and honored him, valued his high qualities, rejoiced in his geniality, turned to him with instinctive confidence in hours of need. Dartmouth has been unusually blessed with men of long service and Mr. Chase was among the most notable of these. He was a strength to the college and to the community — a rare personality, whose gifts fitted him in an uncommon manner for the posts of fidelity and trust which he filled so well throughout a period close on half a century in length. Both in business and in social relationships Mr. Chase was valued by all who knew him. A courteous and kindly gentleman, a wise counsellor, a sagacious banker, a delightful companion who retained a young heart to the last — such was "C. P.'" as his intimates were wont to call him. He served well his day.