DR. C. P. BANCROFT DIES IN HANOVER HOSPITAL

Dr. Charles Parker Bancroft, consultant in mental hygiene for the College during the past three years and a life-long resident of New Hampshire, died in Hanover, 14, of cerebral hemorrhage at the age of 71 years. He was stricken while at work in Dean R. W. Husband's office two days previously and was removed to the Mary Hitchcock Memorial hospital where he did not recover consciousness.

Dr. Bancroft, who was one of the best known men in the state and a national authority on mental hygiene, was born at St. Johnsbury, Vt., January 11, 1852. He was educated at the Concord schools, the Phillips Andover Academy and received his Bachelor of Arts degree at Harvard University in 1874. Continuing his work at Harvard he was awarded an M.D. four years later. In 1884 he married Susan C. Wood, of Newton Center, Mass., and to them were born four children, three of whom survive. They are Mrs. J. R. McLane of Manchester, whose husband is a Dartmouth graduate in the class of 1907, an unmarried daughter Miriam who is in China and a third daughter residing in the middle west.

Mr. Bancroft was formerly house officer of the Boston City Hospital. Since 1878 he has been connected with the New Hampshire State Insane Hospital. From 1878 to 1879 he was assistant physician, later being made superintendent which office he held from 1882 to 1917, succeeding his father J. P. Bancroft whci had been superintendent for 25 years. This record of 60 years' service by father and son is probably unequalled in the country.

He was physician of the Boston City Dispensary in 1880 and held the presidency of the New Hampshire Medical Society in 1919. As early as 1888 he established a training school for nurses, being one of the pioneer schools in hospitals for the insane.

Dr. Bancroft was a member of the American Medical Association, the New England Psychological Society, the Boston Society of Psychiatry and Neurology, of which he was president in 1905 and the American Psychological Association, of which he was also president, being elected to the office for the year 1908. He was president of the New Hampshire Board of Charities and Corrections.

A frequent writer in various medical journals, Dr. Bancroft contributed to Wood's Handbook of Medical Sciences. He is author of 14 monographs among the representative titles of which are "Inquiry Into Causes of Insanity with Especial Reference to Prevention and Treatment," 1884; "Automatic Muscular Movements of the Insane," 1891; "Legal and Medical Insanity," 1900; and "Some Perils Confronting the State Care of the Insane," 1914.

He was a member of the Congregational church, the University and Harvard Clubs and the Appalachian Mountain Club of Boston and politically supported the Republican party.

Three years ago Dr. Bancroft commenced his duties in connection with Dartmouth and derived a special satisfaction from the fact that his father had taught in the Dartmouth Medical school and that his grandfather was a Dartmouth student.

The funeral was held in the South Congregational church at Concord. The service was conducted by Rev. Robbins W. Barstow, 1913, pastor of the church, and Rev. Ashley D. Leavitt, a Concord boy, now pastor of the Harvard Congregational church, Brookline, Mass. It was a beautiful service in which the appreciation by Dr. Leavitt was especially impressive The honorary bearers represented the various activities with which Dr. Bancroft was most closely associated, Dartmouth College, the State Hospital, the State Board of Charities and Corrections, Concord banks, the South Church, and his class at Harvard.

Prof. Husband, Director of Personnel Research in the College, writes of the value of Dr. Bancroft's work at Dartmouth:

"For nearly three years Dr. Bancroft was consultant in Mental Hygiene in connection with the office of Personnel Research. His work consisted in advising with students who had developed some form of nervous or mental difficulty. Men fell down in their* work, lost interest, became anxious or depressed, feared examinations, or showed lack of control. These were symptoms for which Dr. Bancroft tried to account, and often succeeded in setting students on the right road, with greater hope of effectiveness, usefulness and happiness.

"He was a recognized scientist, but in conference with students the scientist was subordinated to the man of great understanding and deep sympathy. That is why he was a remarkable interviewer. His personality inspired confidence and the utmost frankness. So the student revealed himself to Dr. Bancroft to a wonderful degree. This was the secret of his success.

"He often said that he lovea his work in the College better than any other work he has recently done and it is a great comfort to his friends to know that he has actively and energetically engaged in his best loved work at the moment he was stricken. We believe that he would have chosen to pass on at such a moment. It is a consolation to know that during the last conscious hour of his life his conversation was of students with whom he had come in contact in Dartmouth College and of plans for the development of his work here. "We prize his scholarship but we prize still more his accomplishment for us as a friend and a guide."