FROM THE UNDERGRADUATE CHAIR

The first month of the new undergraduate year is just ending, and the undergraduate body finds itself getting into the swing of Dartmouth once more. The year really will be started next Saturday, when the college will follow Nate Parker's eleven toward Cambridge. Just now that game with Harvard is the main topic of conversation, and everyone seems to be on edge wondering what will happen in the stadium.

Despite the fact that the team has had no real test as yet, a current of optimism seems to be running through the conversation one hears flying around. Not so with the football squad, however. They anticipate a real battle, and hope for a win more than expect one.

One of the main interests of the undergraduate body upon arrival in Hanover was the Class of 1929. The new men, as usual, found themselves subject to all sorts of salesmen and jokesters. They weathered those tests well, and the college began to think the new class representative. This verdict was encouraged by the spirit with which the new men flung themselves into the pushball rush.

The class of 1928 had only a handful to oppose the mob of freshmen, as is usually the case. So the freshmen won the rush; and they semed to enjoy that barbaric first-day taste of undergraduate life.

A week later they survived Delta Alpha as well, even seeming to get a lot of pleasure from the asininities through which they went. Aside from a scarcity of clothing, there were no unfavorable aspects to Delta Alpha. The upperclassmen did not seem to get much pleasure out of the ceremonies, however, and sentiment is gathering for the abolition of the initiation custom. The matter most likely will come up later in the year.

The absence of first year fraternity rushing this year has served to let down a good deal of the tension usually felt in relations between up- perclassmen and freshmen. The Interfraternity Council amended the rules drawn up last year so that every fraternity member is pledged not to mention fraternity matters to a fresh- man. Organized calling in the rooms of the first year men has been started by a few groups, but it is not expected that much effort to get acquainted with the freshmen will be made until they are better accustomed to un- dergraduate life.

President Hopkins, as you know, made "understanding" the keynote of his opening talk. He implied the duty of the individual to himself is to develop his capacity for understanding, and knowledge is a prerequisite to understanding. This theme he developed later also at the Vesper Service in Rollins Chapel one Sunday evening. The logical plan for the undergraduates to follow in heeding him was to study more, and, according to surface evidence, there is more studying going on this year than has gone on in the years immediately past. Individuals seem to have less time to themselves, they say, and the Library—that tiny nook—is always filled.

The Dartmouth, commenting on the opening speech, said:

"President Hopkins provided an excellent ideal for the undergraduate body to strive for during this year when he defined education as "learning to understand." If those undergraduates who seek education work toward the goal of understanding, it is not unlikely that the intellectual interest of the College will be more firmly grounded.

"Within the memory of present seniors, a wave of hullabaloo about self-development, individual intellectual cultivation and so forth has passed over the campus. The heyday of the fad was characterized by shilly-shally thinking and bleating, based more on the desire to be spectacular than on the desire to learn. Confucius, some 3000 years ago, said: "Study without thought is vain; thought without study is perilous." And some of us evidently fell into this age-old latter trap.

The time has come to get down to work, however, as President Hopkins—with his customary acumen—stated decisively in his opening talk to the College. What he said was that we, as students, should strive for understanding ; because "he who has acquired understanding is educated." His more basic message, however, was that we must work, work to understand. He knows that we must study deeply into various phases of life before we can hope to understand them. We do not begin to understand, however much we think we do, until we work for knowledge. And this new year, if we follow Mr. Hopkins' suggestion and hope, will be one of work to make our thinking valid. Study and thought will go hand in hand.

"The President knows the undergraduate. Sitting in the Administration Building, he has worked to understand him. He knew him well when his fondest hope was for an athletic letter, and he has watched the ulterior shift of preference toward the Phi Beta Kappa key.

"It was Mr. Hopkins who started the movement for individualism, when he deplored the tendency to conform to type just three years ago. He later saw his standards of individualism confused; and last fall warned us against unintelligent iconoclasm. This year he switches his attention to the godly, self-sufficient. Such an attitude, he says, results from concentration of interest upon the present. He continues, "The too frequent result of such a state is fatuous egotism and stultifying selfishness. These work themselves out in a distasteful philosophy and claim for themselves a self-indulgence which they prettily phrase as self-expression."

"Undergraduates have had time to penetrate this breed of self-considered intellectual. He was too blatant to avoid attention, and too insipid to cloak himself adequately when attention was attracted. So the campus is without a group reputed to be the intelligentsia. Each undergraduate properly might feel humble in matters involving the intellect, and know that the man by his side has no reason not to feel equally humble. In other words, we start the year at scratch; and our intellectual advancement will be measured by our willingness to study for understanding. "It is a treat to read and meditate over this talk to the College, to observe how a wide field is covered in a few words. Mr. Hopkins even reminds us that the best way to get work done is to organize our time, an almost futile suggestion ; unless, perchance, the undergraduate this year really wants to understand and does not fear to apply himself to study. June will tell."

The restoration of daily chapel service, at 5 in the evening, finds about one hundred men attending each day. The Sunday Vesper Service has about a thousand in attendance, including visitors and townspeople. The Rev. Roy Chamberlin, pastor of the White Church, is Chaplain in charge of the services. The program at each service includes music, prayer and a devotional talk. Those who have assisted the Rev. Mr. Chamberlin thus far include President Hopkins, Professor Urban and Professor Vernon.

We undergraduates felt very sorry to lose the Rev. Dr. Dallas as pastor of St. Thomas' Episcopal Church. Dr. Dallas was a splendid example of Christian courage to the undergraduate body, and such a man is needed in this location. As yet his successor has not been named.

Dr. Dallas left Hanover to become Vicar of St. Paul's in Boston, believing he could be of more service to his Church and society there.

It was unfortunate that the Dartmouth Night celebration had to be curtailed because of rain. We feel sure that a larger number of undergraduates would have turned out for the occasion, had not the weather been so depressing. Plans had been laid for a torchlight parade. When this was called off, the meeting started in Webster Hall. President Hopkins introduced E. K. Woodworth '97, V. M. Cutter '03 and J. B. Hawley '09 as the speakers. Each of the three made splendid talks, and appealed to the undergraduate body to respect and love the College as alumni do. Their appeals were met with enthusiastic sanction, and the unde- graduates present benefited by hearing such thoughts.

Should the alumni be interested in any possible change in attitude of the undergraduate body toward the traditions of the College, the following editorial on Dartmouth Night—which appeared in The Dartmouth—may be worth noting:

"Mention a college and the wizened man thinks of a group of buildings, including laboratories and recitation halls. But the word in the higher sense means an association of men with common interests and common aims. It is this higher aspect of the college which has meant so much to Dartmouth men. Some have gone so far as to liken membership in the Dartmouth fellowship to membership in a club, since the briefest connection with the College has so often marked intimate contacts with Dartmouth groups for years after.

" This privilege that the College extends to those within its fold is one not often realized, and seldom appreciated, by men yet undergraduates. The true meaning of it dawns following entrance into the respective alumni groups.

" Dartmouth Night will mean all the more to the undergraduate body tonight, for this reason, because it will be one of the rare opportunities we have as undergraduates to sense this spirit of unity. This is not the conclusive factor which should bring every member of every class into the torchlight parade and into Webster Hall, however. The more important reason for us meeting together tonight is that these few hours, set aside once a year, belong to the College. It is our duty to give them to the institution which harbors us for these four instructive and happy years.

" President Emeritus Tucker, who watches the College day by day from his home on Occom Ridge, founded Dartmouth Night to 'perpetuate the Dartmouth spirit and to make real to the undergraduates the heroic traditions of the College.' Dartmouth men have met one night a year for thirty years since, in all corners of the world, to refresh that spirit and to revere those traditions. Each year more undergraduates have crowded to breathe the rare atmosphere of enthusiasm which permeates Dartmouth alumni.

" The meeting tonight doubtless will surpass any that has taken place heretofore, with interest in the College at an increasingly higher ebb. The entire undergraduate body, realizing that these few hours belong to Dartmouth, will go to hear three members of the alumni speak on the significance of Dartmouth membership. Mr. Woodworth, Mr. Cutter and Mr. Hawley each have given the College a part of their lives. This is only one reason that makes them worth hearing.

" A wave of ridicule for affection for the College has passed over the campus in recent months. But beneath it an undercurrent of sincere enthusiasm for Dartmouth and its ideals was always apparent. The time has come for that undercurrent to thrust itself uppermost."

Another instance in which the College is raising its requirements for admission, which has interested the undergraduate body, is that just announced in which no man with a scholastic condition will be admitted in the future.

The Bema has at last died a natural death. In its place is to be established a pictorial magazine, the details of which are here furnished by Ken Korten '26, its founder and publisher:

" The latest stir among campus publications has been that created by the change of the Bema to the Dartmouth Pictorial. The Bema was the literary pictorial monthly of the College, and it has been decided to publish in its place the new Dartmouth Pictorial. This will contain nothing but pictures of every phase of Dartmouth life.

"It is planned to make the new pictorial something much better than the usual college graphic. It will not be a graphic in any sense but will be of a more durable and lasting nature. In fact, the new pictorial will be a printed 'mem' book of Dartmouth activities throughout the year. Thirty-two pages of campus pictures will be printed on India tinted paper of superior quality and the cover is to be of a heavy brownish-green stock. Since the new pictorial will be issued only three times during the year, only the best pictures of undergraduate photographers will be used, and these, printed on a fine paper, should make a very attractive issue.

" The schedule of the new Dartmouth Pictorial calls for a Football Number, coming out in November, a Carnival, and a Commencement number. It is the intention of the board to get this Football issue out in time for sales at the Chicago game this fall and thus introduce this latest of campus publications to alumni throughout the country.

" Such a publication, of course, cannot be maintained through campus subscriptions alone, and it hoped that many alumni will take the advantage of this chance to enjoy vicariously a year at the Dartmouth of today with the help of the new pictorial."

One of the most interesting occasions of the month was when the Oxford debating team, which is touring the Colleges of the East, debated Dartmouth in Dartmouth Hall. The question was " Resolved, that this house looks with favor upon the World Court."

Two Oxford men and one Dartmouth man, W. H. McKay '26, favored the affirmative; while two Dartmouth men, S. Rubin '28 and P. Hommeyer '26, with one Oxford man, took the negative.

The debate was carried on along the lines under which the English universities debate, that is: no judges' decision was rendered on the merits of the debate, but at the close of the debate a vote of the audience was taken on the merits of the question involved. In this instance it was decided by a two to one vote that the audience favored the World Court.

There will be only one day holiday, instead of the usual three, at Thanksgiving this year. Of course, a large number of undergraduates, seeing a trip to Boston or New York or Montreal, cut off by the change, were disappointed. For some years just such a shift has been advocated by The Dartmouth, however, and this year that paper supported the change, as follows:

" The action of the Administration in granting only one holiday at Thanksgiving has met with the approval of those undergraduates who are here for education. THE DARTMOUTH has advocated such a change for several years past.

" For the information of those interested, there is no ground for the rumor that the twoday recess thus eliminated will be added to the Christmas recess. Undergraduates should have little patience with the man who demands that two extra days be given at Christmas time to make up for the lost holidays.

" Considering the matter squarely, all understand that the decision gives us more education for our money. Those extra five hours of education are more than we expected to get for the tuition price. This sounds perfectly asinine, we are aware, to those who consider education in terms of fulfilling the minimum requirements. But to whom do they matter?

" A very reasonable provision for New England men to enjoy Thanksgiving at home was made, in the decision not to charge cuts taken just before and after that Thursday as overcuts. We believe the holiday has been adjusted to the best interests of all."

The Gallagher scholarships this year were awarded to A. J. Oberlander '26 and J. H. Fuqua '27.

Robert Morss Lovett, an editor of the NewRepublic, spoke before the Round Table recently on " Liberalism, Past and Present."