WHAT ARE THE TRUSTEES DOING?

An address delivered at the annual meeting of the Secretaries Associationin Hanover, April 25, 1924

Fifty years ago this coming autumn, as I came out of Dartmouth Hall from a freshman recitation, I saw six or eight elderly gentlemen walking around among the buildings. They were gray-haired, most of them stoop-shouldered, one of them was leaning heavily on his cane, and all showed the wear and tear of a long and active life. Some of them wore the high hats of that period or of a somewhat earlier vintage. Altogether, they made what might be called in the language of the campus, rather an antiquated looking lot.

I asked an upperclassman whom I met who they were and he said they were the trustees of the College. "What have they to do with running the College?" I said. "I don't know," he replied; "but I guess they don't amount to much." He passed on and so did I.

Half a century later, I am called upon to answer here tonight that same question which I put to the upper classman: What are the trustees doing?

When Eleazar Wheelock, the founder of the College, trekked from Connecticut into the New Hampshire wilderness to be nearer the Indians whom he hoped to educate and christianize, he established here in his school a strictly paternal and patriarchal form of government. He was trustee, president, treasurer, preceptor, chaplain, farmer and financier.

When, a little later, a charter was granted to him to found this college, to educate both Indians and white men, a charter which he himself wrote, he not only named himself president for life, but gave himself the privilege of naming his successor by will. He also named all of the trustees and so far as possible selected them from members of his own family and intimate friends so that, at his death, the College was a sort of W heelock Dynasty; and although a thousand or more acres of land in this immediate vicinity had been granted by the towns of Hanover and Lebanon, only about twenty acres of this remained in the possession of the College. Each of his four sons were given two hundred acres and each of his two daughters one hundred acres, these farms including not only most of the land here now owned by the College, but nearly all of the present village of Hanover; and, strange as it may seem, all the college buildings, dwelling houses, mills, shops, barns, and storehouses previously constructed stood on the land of his children.

In addition to the twenty acres of vacant land, he left to the future trustees a debt of such size that, if we may believe the statement of a contemporary, all the lands granted to the College in other parts of the state, if sold at public auction, would not have liquidated this debt.

His chariot, clock., and punch bowl fell to his successor in the presidency. The two former have disappeared and the latter, by recent legislative action, has become practically useless.

So, if the question which I am called xipon to answer tonight was. what have the trustees done in one hundred and fifty years? I should reply that they have transformed this ancient and modest legacy of Dr. Wheelock, of somewhat doubtful value at that time, into a modern corporation of the twentieth century known as Dartmouth College. To accomplish this great work has required the faithful and devoted service of a long list of able and loyal sons of the College.

By the terms of the charter there were to be forever twelve trustees and no more, eight of whom must be respectable freeholders of New Hampshire, and, although the author of the charter was a minister, lie required that seven of his trustees—a working majority—must be laymen. I am one of the seven.

For many years only four of the trustees could reside outside of New Hampshire; but by special act of the New Hampshire legislature this number was increased to five and two years ago, in the same manner, the number was again increased to seven.

About thirty years ago the trustees of the College felt that they were falling behind their contemporaries, Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, and called on the alumni to come to their assistance. The alumni replied that they must have a larger representation, for from the days of Wheelock the board had been self-perpetuating and the alumni, as such, had had very little to do with the management of the College. And so there was a gentleman's agreement that whenever vacancies occurred on the board five of those vacancies should be filled by men nominated by the alumni; and enough resigned at that time to produce the five vacancies That agreement has been respected up to the present time; and as a matter of fact the other five (for the President of the College and the Governor are ex-officio trustees) have been quite generally selected from those previously nominated by the alumni; so that, at the present time, there is only one member of the board who was not originally selected by the alumni, and we have now, instead of the patriarchal form of government of Wheelock, a genuine democracy. So, theoretically at least, the alumni, through the board of trustees, really manage the College and perhaps come as near actually doing that as it is possible, considering their great numbers and wide distribution.

This additional fact may be of interest: the first board of trustees that had anything to do with managing the funds which ultimately came to the College was established in England and maintained there for many years. The chairman of that board was Lord Dartmouth.

These funds were originally raised for Moor's Charity School, to be used only for the education of the Indians, and, together with certain grants of land in Vermont and New Hampshire, were kept sequestered from funds of the College proper almost to the present day. It is, in fact, only about ten years ago that by special acts of the Vermont legislature and a decree of the Supreme Court oi Grafton County these properties were turned over to the College and the ancient corporation of Moor's Charity School dissolved.

But I assume that you would like to know tonight what the trustees are doing now and what they intend to do in the immediate future.

The most important service that the trustees are ever called upon to render is the selection of a president. The responsibility of choosing the right man to head the College in all its activities and to represent her among the leaders of thought and education throughout the nation is almost overwhelming. To select the wrong man is a calamity but a wise choice is a blessing to be thankful for forever. Such a blessing we have in President Hopkins. A _man of upright character, keen mind, fearless courage, and a kindly heart, he is looked upon by all who know him as an ideal college president. We as a board not only believe in his ideals, respect his judgment, and follow his leadership, but we love him as a brother; and you may be sure of one thing, that whatever else we may do or whatever we may fail to do, we shall standby Hoppy to the last ditch.

Next in importance to the president among the executive officers of the College is the dean, and when we selected the present incumbent of that office I believe we picked a winner.

But we may have a strong president, a wise and wily dean; we may cover this Hanover plain with splendid buildings: we may win the most notable victories upon the gridiron and the diamond: and we may have the most enthusiastic alumni meetings from one end of this country to the- other, if we have not a strong faculty our college will be only mediocre.

As is the teacher, so is' the school,"' is an old and trite saying. It is as true today as it ever was, and applies to the' college as well as to the school. I know I am speaking for every member of the present board of trustees when I say that it is our earnest desire to have as strong a faculty as we can possibly secure with the means at our disposal. We want men of sterling worth, who will by their daily life be ah inspiration to every student who comes in contact with them. We want men of sound scholarship in the departments which they are called upon to preside over. But "above all we want teachers, men who know how to impart knowledge and also know how to stimulate young men to work for an education, to think for themselves, and to distinguish between the sophistries of the demagogue and the sound reasoning of the real statesman.

We have such men on the faculty; we hope to have more; and as evidence of our interest in this matter, if you compare the salaries that we are paying now with what they were twenty years ago you will find that they have been practically doubled : and if you compare the number of the faculty with the number ten years ago you will find, even with the larger number of students, that the number on the faculty is relatively greater than it was then. Of course we have to compete with institutions that can offer larger salaries and greater advantages in being near large libraries and cities; but, on the other hand, we have some inducements to offer which the city college can not boast of. So, altogether, we feel that we have a faculty of marked strength and teaching ability.

When the Administration Building was erected, about twelve years ago, seats were provided in the Faculty Room for about one hundred and twenty-five men. At that time there were only seventy-five members and the margin for growth was considered ample; but at the present time the room is over-crowded when all are present, so we are enlarging that building in order that all may be given seats and also leave a reasonable margin for future arowth.

I have heard it said that there have been times in the history of the College when the faculty looked upon the board of trustees as their natural enemies and that the feeling was to a certain degree reciprocated on the part of the trustees. If such conditions ever prevailed they no longer exist. Our present organization and membership tend to mutual understanding and agreement. When the president of the College presides at a faculty meeting, as he usually does, they know that he represents there the board of trustees. He is also president of the board of trustees and in all matters that come before us that affect the faculty we expect him to represent them and see that their views are clearly set before us. And, again, we are fortunate in having upon the board two men who have been members of the faculty and can naturally look at questions from the faculty standpoint —Professor Lord, who has been conversant with the customs and traditions of the faculty for fifty years or more, and Dr. Gile, who as a neighbor and member of the medical faculty is in almost daily contact with the leading men in all departments of the College.

In addition to this in the last few years the faculty have a committee for conference with the trustees, whom we are always glad to hear from and with whom we have frequent meetings.

Formerly there was sometimes a complaint that honorary degrees were awarded without giving the necessary consideration to the scholarly attainments of the recipients. There is now a joint committee on honorary degrees made up of members of the trustees and faculty, so that mistakes of that nature are not likely to occur in the future.

Altogether, the trustees and faculty are now working in the utmost harmony to the great good of the College.

In the last few years we have heard a good deal about academic freedom, and we read of institutions that have been torn asunder because the trustees tried to dictate what doctrines of science, religion, or economics should be taught. In the sixteen years that I have been upon the board I have never heard this question referred to in one of our meetings and I have attended every meeting but two in that time. As a general educational policy we elect a president, choose a faculty, and hold them responsible for results. So far as I know we have never hampered them in developing a policy suited to the demands of the times and what they believe to be for the best interests of the undergraduates, looking forward to the conditions which they are likely to meet as they go on in life, rather than being bound to the opinions of men active in the life of today.

It is worthy of note that the faculty are now giving a critical study of the educational policy which they are themselves pursuing in dealing with the undergraduate body. Not only are they discussing this most thoroughly among themselves, but they are looking abroad for help and enlightenment. The trustees are most heartily cooperating by granting one of their members leave of absence, not only to visit other institutions in this country, but also to visit Cambridge, Oxford, and other foreign institutions, and the college corporation is paying the expenses of this trip.

In addition to this the president, under the guise of a brief vacation and muchneeded rest, is also abroad on the same errand.

Groups of young graduates have been called together, young men who have been out of college long enough to see how their intellectual equipment fits them for the problems they have to meet and who still have a clear recollection of what the}' received from their college course. These young men have been asked, What did you get out of your courses? What changes in methods of instruction or in the courses to be pursued would you recommend?

I had the privilege recently of sitting in with a group of these young men and was very much impressed with the maturity of their outlook and the practical suggestions which they brought out in the discussion.

Even the older students in college have been asked what they would suggest; and if I understand correctly, from a recent editorial which I read in TheDartmouth, one of their remedies for the ills which they think beset the College is to throw the student into the libraries, laboratories, moving-picture galleries, and other intellectual facilities which Hanover affords and make him responsible for his own education, with the faculty standing by to lend a helping hand if he should get beyond his depths. If this proposition gets by the faculty with their approval, the trustees will give it that careful consideration which it deserves.

\\ hat, then, is the general policy of the trustees with reference to the future! I think I am absolutely safe in saying that we have no desire to establish a university at Hanover. We are not equipped for that and we would not favor it if we were- We do not for a number of years to come want more than two thousand students here at any one time. Some of us I am sure would have been ready to stop at sixteen hundred but the demands made upon us were so insistent that we consented to go to two thousand.

While we do not want a university, we do want and propose to have, if it is possible to make it so, one of the strongest and best equipped colleges in these United States; and our plan in general is to take each department, separately, and equip it in such a way that any young man who comes here and takes any of the courses that we can offer may feel sure, and his family may feel sure, that he is getting the very best.

As an illustration, take a single department. that of chemistry: five years ago the facilities for teaching chemistry were not much better than they were forty years ago save in the character of the instruction. The splendid work done under the direction of Professor Bartlett with so inadequate an equipment has always deservedly merited and received the unqualified approval and appreciation of the trustees.

As one of the results of the war there came an extraordinary demand for courses in chemistry. We had no equipment sufficient to meet this demand. We called upon our professors in chemistry to look the country over, get all the ideas thev could, not only from chemical buildings in other institutions, but particularly from those great industries that require chemical laboratories in their business, and to recommend to us what was needed.

This they did and to our amazement it seemed to require a building and equipment costing about four hundred thousand dollars. We did not have one dollar available for that purpose. What were we to do? We must have this equipment or the College must confess that it could not meet the requirements of the times. And so we agreed to go ahead, borrow the money, and trust in the future to find some way to pay for it; and, as you know, before the building was finished, one of our own number, Mr. Steele, passed away and by his will gave us about half enough to pay for the entire equipment. From all I can hear no institution is better prepared to give instruction in this department than Dartmouth College.

So, one by one, we hope in time to be able to make the same statement with reference to all.

When about fifteen years ago for the first time, so far as I know, a complete balance sheet, giving all the assets and liabilities of the college, was prepared, a conservative valuation showed about four million dollars worth of property and a debt of about one hundred thousand dollars. Ten years later the property had increased to seven millions and the debt reduced to forty thousand dollars. At the present time we have between nine and ten million dollars worth of property with outstanding obligations of about three hundred and fifty thousand dollars.

This property has all come to the College by gift from many sources, frequently by will. Oftentimes the College is made the residuary legatee of an estate and after a settlement with the other beneficiaries we take whatever may be left. As a result at one time we had blocks of real estate scattered from one end of the country to the other: the remnants of an old plantation in Virginia; stores and tenement houses in Kansas City; vacant lots in Seattle; city property in Chicago; stores and mill property in Lowell; leased lands in Vermont; farms and woodlots in New Hampshire. The policy of the trustees in these later years has been to dispose of such property as soon as possible and reinvest the proceeds in such manner as will best serve the interests of the College.

Gifts are usually made either for specific purposes or in trust, to be invested, and the income only to be used either for specific or general purposes. Very rarely is anything given outright, to be used at the discretion of the trustees. At the present time, so far as I can recall, we haven't a dollar of unrestricted funds at our disposal.

For investment purposes, unless otherwise required by the donors, we place these various gifts in a group, known as the Associated Trusts, and any profit or loss made in these investments is shared proportionately by all. At the present time there has been accumulated in this profit and loss account about $60,000; that is, we could now suffer a loss of that amount without impairing our principal.

One of our largest investments, the wisdom of which has been sometimes questioned, is about one million dollars in dormitories here in Hanover. V hile we can not invest trust funds in a nonincome-producing property, like a chapel, library, or gymnasium, we are at liberty to invest such funds in dormitories if we deem it wise to do so. Unless some method of depreciation were adopted, when a dormitory wore out and had to be replaced, our trust funds invested in it would disappear; so each year we return to the principal from the earnings of these properties such a sum as will fully liquidate the investment before the building wears out. This amount differs in different buildings, according to their probable life. In our latest high grade and practically fireproof buildings about one and one-half to two per cent per annum of the cost is deemed sufficient. Hallgarten, which is about to be destroyed, stands as an investment of five hundred dollars.

Thirty years ago less than one-half of the land bordering on the campus belonged to the College. It has been the policy of the trustees to acquire this property, which at one time all belonged to the College, whenever opportunity offered, and it is less than ten years ago that the last piece, the old brick bank block on the present site of Robinson Hall, was finally secured. And the present policy of the board is to secure, not only such properties in and around Hanover as the College now actually needs, but such properties as will probably be needed in the future development of the college plant.

Our annual income fifteen years ago v'as about two hundred and eighty thousand dollars. It is now about one million dollars, including the Alumni Fund, which is fast reaching very substantial proportions and is of tremendous value and encouragement to those who administer the affairs of the College.

About fifty per cent of this income comes from tuitions. Our investments, yielding annually about five and one-half per cent, furnish thirty-five per cent more, and the balance comes from the Alumni Fund and other annual gifts.

Our expenses we try to make identical with our income. The College is not run to make money but to make men; and so we spend every dollar of income that we can get our hands on. There have been instances, when, in great stress, we have for a time allowed the expenses of a single year to exceed our income; but that is not the policy of the board of trustees.

The machinery for administering the financial affairs of the College is simple but I believe adequate. At the three or four regular meetings of the board of trustees so far as possible all important financial questions are settled. There is, however, an executive committee, which meets at the call of the president between the meetings of the trustees, that can take care of any important business that needs to be attended to.

Careful records of the meetings, not only of the regular board of trustees but of the executive committee, are made, and these records are not only kept here in Hanover but copies are sent to each member of the board; so there is no excuse for any member not knowing what is going on.

Some years ago we adopted the budget system. This has been a great benefit in economically managing the affairs of the College and its requirements are strictly observed. The treasurer is not permitted to pay a bill of any sort or kind that has not been previously provided for in the budget, except in an extraordinary emergency.

The annual Report of the Treasurer sets forth clearly the financial condition of the corporation and faithfully records the transactions of the year. I commend this report to every alumnus as a model of its kind.

At the present time, as you may have noticed, we are enlarging the hotel by adding fifty rooms, each with a bath. In this enterprise we have been very materially helped by Randolph McNutt '7l, member of the Alumni Council.

Thornton Hall, for many years a dormitory, is being changed over into a recitation hall, with a considerable number of offices suited to the present demands of the faculty. It is interesting to note that this hall was named for the man who gave President Wheelock his chariot.

Careful plans are being prepared for a new president's house, which shall be not only suitable for a residence of the president and his family but shall have ample accommodations especially adapted to entertainment without interfering with the home life of the president. The funds for this building are already in hand.

Probably so far as equipment is concerned the most crying need is a newlibrary, the workshop of the student body. Plans have been perfected for this building, the location decided upon, and we only await the necessary funds to begin the work. To construct such a library as the College ought to have will require from seven hundred and fifty thousand to a million dollars, and if no single friend of the college appears to meet this extraordinary demand we shall in the end, as usual, have to go back to the alumni, and then I know, from past experience, the library will be built.

So I have tried to answer in a very general way the question, what have the trustees done in the past and what are they doing now in carrying on the affairs of the College?

If we may judge from the remarks of some educational authorities the college of the future may be better managed without trustees, for Professor Zimmern, the distinguished European student of our colleges, insists upon the fact "that the business man put in charge of an institution of higher learning is undeniably in a false position. His training and outlook inevitably drive him to apply forms of thinking and to favor policies which, however sagacious in business, are wholly unsuitable to education; and the greater his sense of responsibility and his anxiety to make a success of his trusteeship, the more calamitous are his policies likely to be."

And not to be outdone by any Englishman, the former president of our sister college at Amherst, has stated, "We do not know how colleges should be managed, what they are for and how it should be done. And if you ask for evidence, I say, 'We still have trustees in charge of them.' When we have learned our proper course, trustees will cease to be."