THE THIRTY-FIFTH REUNION

We are checking out at North Massachusetts. We have slept (?) and dreamed again in student beds for a week. The thirty-fifth reunion for '89 is at an end and you are asking, as we part, that I write down for your report the dents or impressions that have made upon me by these days of fun and by the new Dartmouth after three and one-half decades of trying to publish a newspaper in the land that was purchased for Uncle Sam by Thomas Jefferson.

Montana had 13 students at Dartmouth in the last catalogue. We shall not stop with this unlucky total. We shall increase the number next year.

There is no need to stress what the builder has done. This story has been broadcasted until it is known in every state. Nature and the builder, in these later days, have entered into a glorious partnership at Hanover. I do not know of an equal accomplishment. Stanford is perhaps nearly a rival. Some of the very things that seemed forbidding when we were boys have now come to be reckoned within advantage and have a magnetic attraction. Latitude and geography have helped the builders of the new Dartmouth. There is an appeal to mothers and fathers who are choosing a school home for their boys. I hear this, appeal in Montana.

Intellectual pursuits have quite materially been broadened and diversified—and I think enough. There is a place in America for a number of colleges clinging to the old-fashioned solid courses—because the parents of the boys to be educated desire to have it so.. Such service is desired though it may be in conflict with tempting policies of enlargement.

The widening paths of knowledge and the new freedom at Dartmouth have reached out into national attention and comment. There has been praise everywhere. It is inspiring to see so many good things. I only hesitate for a moment. I am not entirely sure that additions have been made throughout the student body in those sterling values and moral integrity that must be put underneath the best citizenship. I offer no criticism. I merely stand guard over some of the things that were gained at Dartmouth 40 years ago through personality, example and rules that have been softened with the years. Perhaps some goodhas been lost in the name of freedom. May I tell an illustrative incident? It furnished the impression that I have thought most about riding back over the miles from New England to Montana.

Three seniors gave addresses within the shadow of historic Dartmouth Hall. Two of them spoke with liberal eulogy of the new thought and freedom in the college. These addresses were well received. The third speaker as well was glad to praise the liberties of the modern Dartmouth, but urged that they must be kept within a self-controlled, industrious and righteous citizenship, and that the old traditions and customs should only be discarded when something better can be put in their place. The applause was generous and prolonged. The interpretation might easily be—let the new and the free thought at Dartmouth have a welcome if it shall lead into a better citizenship, but it ought to stand this test or be subject to restraint and direction.

I would not be particular about church attendance or chapel attendance. I have no preaching to do. I am thinking of the business of correct living. The christian college that takes out the former religious severities, and does not put something in place of the old-fashioned religion, has surely subtracted from the. service it can and should render the young men who study. The average college boy needs direction and regulation of his religious instruction as much as he does a control of his mental and physical development. A boy who does not study his Bible in college will not even dust it afterward.

The senior, I believe, spoke what is in the hearts of the men of Dartmouth. Let the old ways and traditions yield, but within the new freedom there must be a building of character that can be trusted with the liberties that have been allowed in the pursuit of knowledge.

Dr. Hopkins' Viewpoint

President Hopkins' letter follows: December 15, 1924.

My dear Dr. Blakely: I do not need to add anything to what you have often beard me say in regard to my official appreciation of the work of the efficient class secretary,—of which group you are, in student phrase, "nothing else but."

I wish to add to whatever I may have said on this matter, however, my statement of personal interest in reading the report of '89, just received, and express my satisfaction in feeling a closer acquaintanceship with the individual members of the class.

The most satisfactory thing that can happen to us is that men shall come back and see for themselves and draw their own conclusions in regard to the and its work. I only wish that all could do this often enough so as to get the reassurance which I think exists in the local situation. I think that a good many of our older men have a lurking sentiment such as Mr. Warden expresses and I wish that their queries could be extensive enough to give them that complete peace of mind which I think would come from full knowledge.

The College actually has within its number at the present time more men actively interested in looking toward the ministry than for years. The college preachers that come here from outside speak of the keen and intelligent attitude toward religion of our men and express the belief that our processes are producing men of unusual promise, in that they will have stamina and will have gone through the experience of meeting disconcerting doubt half way, within their college course, rather than after, which is the case with many a man. Moreover, I need no comment and no study of statistics to tell me the truth which these do tell, —that in morality, genuine goodness and even little courtesies and kindnesses the College of today is infinitely more thoughtful and infinitely better than the College of even my own time,—which was a pretty good College.

I think of the College method and the College process as being analogous to those of the contractor who has upon him the ob- ligation of erecting a strong and beautiful building upon a lot occupied by an aban- doned structure much out of repair and somewhat demolished. The first necessary process on the undergraduate mind in a genuinely constructive effort is clearing away a lot of debris, and the doing of this in the cause of progressive and constructive thinking ought not to be deemed destructive.

After all, isn't the responsibility of the College and the church alike to secure the results which accrue from a clean, capableminded, straight-living generation? If that be so, one cannot live day in and day out among these two thousand boys without feeling that the situation is one to breed optimism and that there is only a minimum of reason for anxiety or doubt.

But I did not intend to go into this detail nor to undertake to argue Mr. Warden's point. Nevertheless, I am not as willing to have question raised about the modern undergraduate in Dartmouth as I am willing that question should be raised about the administration or the instruction corps. Moreover, I am certain that if Mr. Warden could live here among the student body his opinion would be the same.

I appreciate, as I have said before, the receipt of the report and I value the knowledge of what the' different men of the class think. It is thus, I think, that we come to understand one another and the class secretary is the kind friend to both.

I am Yours very sincerely, (Signed) Ernest M. Hopkins.