COMMENCEMENT 1925
This is a history of the one hundred fifty-sixth Commencement of Dartmouth College. The modern method of writing history is so analytical and direct that it would be impossible for the writer to follow it. In writing a sermon or an article of any kind, it is customary to select a text or a subject and then try to treat this subject in an intelligent and interesting way. I am going to follow this method because it gives one such an opportunity to fill up space. At the end of every paragraph you can say, "But this is quite apart from my subject. I must now return to my main theme." This article will be a series of digressions and if there are no signboards to designate them,, they will be none the less apparent.
First let's be analytical and ask"What is Commencement?" Is it designed to give the successful members of the senior class degrees and send them out into the world with the spirit of the College back of them, or is it simply an expedient adopted so that the alumni can come back to Hanover and do things that they would not do anywhere else? It is the old question as to whether athletics are for undergraduates or for the alumni. Let's dismiss it by saying that there would be no intercollegiate athletics and there would be no Commencement if there were not undergraduates and graduating classes. However, if there was any responsibility felt by the alumni that they should set an example to those young chaps starting out into the world, it was not apparent on Friday night of this one hundred fifty-sixth Commencement time. No pall was cast over the activities of the recent reunion classes because of any example which they felt it necssary to set.
Hanover was gorgeous at this reunion time. Everything was fresh and bright and sparkling. By an arrangement made with the weather man by the committee in charge of its twenty-fifth reunion, the rain was confined to the night and sunshine invoked for the day. The campus, the halls and the surrounding hills presented a blaze of glory as if to welcome their children back in all the splendor of their beauty.
Of course you cannot have a Commencement where there is marching without a band. The band this year was unique in that it consisted entirely of students with just a faint interspersing of janitors, firemen and local talent. However, it was a Dartmouth band, organized by Major '26 and drilled by Professor Longhurst and they gave a concert on Sunday night and played at all the functions. They wore the Dartmouth green and performed as valiantly as Robin Hood's band in Sherwood Forest. Gone were the signs indicating that such and such a band had left its native town to make the Dartmouth Commencement possible. One could loudly cheer this organization without feeling that such cheers would raise the contract price for next year's Commencement committee. So let's start by giving Professor Longhurst a deserved tribute for the wonderful work he has done for Hanover in a musical way all this year.
The first thing on the program was the class day exercises. Intelligent witnesses state that they were better than those of previous years. Certainly the prophecies were original and delivered with all the zest of a star in this year's Follies. The ode was sung by a quartette which certainly made it more intelligible but some missed the congregational singing which I suppose is a feature inherited from Puritan days. If hearing plainly is believing, the present method is best, but if saying means believing, the old method would be better.
The President's reception is now held under the big tent at the lower end of the campus. Here Mr. and Mrs. Hopkins receive the reunion classes, the faculty and the friends of the College in a most delightful way. Gone are the stuffy, crowded halls, the jam around the door and the little difficulties that always attend an indoor reception. The receiving line is not crowded, although probably more people meet the President and Mrs. Hopkins than ever before.
While an out-of-door reception may seem unconventional to some, it is thoroughly in keeping with Hanover. The great out-of-doors is King and if we can hold a formal reception, receiving the benefit of what Hanover has to offer, we have once more availed ourselves of the advantages which are peculiarly our own.
The writer does not feel competent to pass on the baccalaureate sermon. The text was, "Tell your prophets to cease prophesying." The baccalaureate sermon was written and delivered to the graduating class and their verdict is the only one that counts. The writer had no time to canvass the class and find out what their impressions were and determine what effect this sermon would have on their later lives. I will therefore leave the baccalaureate sermon as perhaps the one thing which a twentyfifth year graduate is not competent to discuss because it obviously was not written or delivered having in mind the impression that it would make on a blase alumnus with twenty-five years of rubbing up against the problems of the world.
At the conclusion of the sermon President Hopkins delivered the usual valedictory to the class in the following words: Men of 1925:
"The College meets again today with you as it has previously met with classes, year by year, in religious service, since time of a long past century.
In this ceremony the College says its heart-felt "Godspeed" to you and symbolizes the religious influence which led to the foundation of this College.
Forms of religious expression and types of desirable religious effort change from one generation to another, but the essential need remains the same,—that among men there shall be a spirit of in telligent helpfulness.
Perhaps, even, this need is more insistent in these times .than ever before, among men individually and among men collectively. In our crowded world and in our crowded lives it becomes more true day by day not only that no man lives to himself alone but likewise that no people lives to itself alone. It is not enough that men be actuated by a spirit of helpfulness, for without intelligence such a spirit may be so misdirected as to be futile and sometimes harmful. It is not enough that the mental faculties be sharpened, without being governed, for then great evil may be more completely wrought.
It is essential, if the college process is to prove to have been worth while, that men be actuated by solicitude for each other's welfare and that they intelligently strive to make their lives significant in this way.
Our look at this time is forward, in anticipating the future and striving to know the nature of the influence which you men will work within the groups of which you will become members.
God grant that it will be such as to bring maximum sense of satisfaction to the broad-minded and big souled men that you to some extent already have become and that in still larger degree you have the capacity to become."
One thing that impresses you about Hanovef on Commencement Sunday is the peace and calm which prevails all day long and well into the night. You ask the reason for this as you wander around the formerly crowded streets and everyone tells you that the reunion classes have gone to Lake Morey or the Tarleton Club or even farther up into the north country. Sunday is picnic day and all the men and their wives and their children pack things into automobiles and take possession of some beautiful spot far away from academic surroundings. In these places they gather to play and talk and eat. By twos or threes or fours they climb some hill, and sit down in some sheltered spot, and talk over the things that have taken place since the last reunion, getting back at last to their undergraduate days in Hanover. "Is the College what it used to be?" an 'B5 man asks of his fellow classmate. "Are they as serious about things as we used to be? Aren't they a little bit effeminate and' think more of their clothes than their deeds ?" "Can we have all this present-day luxury without a weakening of the moral fibre?" "How much did it cost you to get through a year at Dartmouth, Bill? Wouldn't $1,500 have made you a millionaire for all time? You could have gone to Boston every weekend or bought a hotel in Hanover fully equipped for your own entertainment." "Isn't wealth coming to the College at the expense of brawn and brain?" "What are all these houses, Jim, up on Webster Avenue? How many more new fraternities are there now than there were in our day?" "Look at the places that we used to consider outskirts of Hanover, which are almost thriving villages today!" "What do you think of the new Inn? Do you believe they get as good board today as we used to get for $3 a week?"
And so these questions are answered, the new buildings enumerated and the new problems met. If you are talking with an optimist who has had a son in college, he will say that the boys of today as a whole are a lot better than they were in his day and that the kind of life that they are leading is the kind that you would want your son to lead. If you are talking with a pessimist he will regret the necessary roughness and uncouthness of the past and will maintain that the College is more like a female seminary than it is like the rugged old Dartmouth of the 'Bo's.
But all this time these men are seeing various places which are a part of the north country, many of them places that they never knew existed when they were in Hanover ten, fifteen, twenty-five or thirty years ago, the unexplored country which has been opened up both to the students and to the alumni in this great development of the new Dartmouth. Their wives and their children tell them jthat they did not know these places existed; "Father never talked about them." The old Connecticut still flows placidly toward the sea but the Dartmouth men of the 'Bo's and '90's were inclined to let it flow; they seldom followed its current back into the beautiful places which Nature had all ready for them to enjoy. The new generation has found these places and the wives and children are enjoying them during the Commencement season, and are saying that they want their boys to go to Dartmouth and spend four years exploring their beauty.
"Yes, but I don't want my boy to go over the ski jump. Just going to the top, and looking out over the tops of the trees is quite enough." And this brings up the point that if it were possible, it might be well to take down the ski jump during the Commencement season, to quiet the nerves of the mothers who view with alarm its dizzy heights and say that it is not for theirs.
Pages might be written of the Hanover of today, but no word can pay proper tribute to its beauty or the real thrill which the alumni and the fathers and mothers get when they come back for reunion and Commencement.
Most of the Memorial Services are held on Sunday. Tributes are paid to those classmates who have passed away since the last reunion. The toll of the five years is rung; the organ sounds; some professor reads from the Scripture, and a classmate pays tribute to those who cannot be present in person at this home-coming. There is a hymn, a short prayer, the benediction and the ceremony is over. The thought of each one linger-s in the minds of all, and then the feeling comes that perhaps the next reunion may find this and that one absent who reuned so merrily with you on this occasion. One had best attend all of these reunions, for each one means that the ranks grow thinner, and it behooves those who survive to draw more closely together in this great fellowship of youth.
The baseball game brings up another question—is it better to have a game with an outside college or an alumni versus varsity game? There are complications which one does not expect. As the alumni team warms up on the field, some chap tells his wife what a wonderful player such and such a man is, how he will crack out a home run or hold this strong varsity team down to two or three hits; And then you get a little bit disillusioned; some of these boys are not in shape and their efforts to hit the ball seem a bit grotesque. One side of the infield seems visibly affected by the tenyear reunion class with its antics and words of encouragement to the umpire. You will reach the conclusion that if such and such a man had been back to play such and such a position, the alumni would have won. Yet there is a joy in seeing the old alumnus come back and play once more on a Dartmouth field, perhaps for the first time against a Dartmouth team. Certainly it is a home contest and you can do and say and think the things you want to, without feeling that you are going to offend some sister college.
A feature of this particular game was the efforts of the ten-year class to make it interesting. William Jennings Bryan was there, as I imagine he was either in person or by reference at every college Commencement this spring. The monkey was worsted and the crowd applauded. A special feature of the Hanover Commencement was the attendance of the Grow Twinses. Their creator, Franklin Collier, an adopted son of 1915, chaperoned them during their stay in Hanover and I understand was quite busy. I hope that the Twinses got a proper idea of Dartmouth. They certainly must have realized that it is an active place.
The meeting of the Alumni Associa tion takes place on Monday afternoon. Very few realize how impressive a meeting this is, especially that part of it which is occupied in telling of the exploits of the SO-year class and introducing each one of them individually. It is too bad that more of the alumni are not present to see these gray-headed., sometimes tot tering and yet virile old men who come back to go over again the deeds of college days. Fifty years of history is a long period and how Dartmouth has grown and changed since their undergraduate days. Some alumnus is going to devise a plan so that these men can be more fittingly honored, for it is an inspiration to welcome them and learn their interest and feeling of confidence in the College and their loyalty to President Hopkins.
And then comes the crowning event of the whole Commencement season, the academic procession which forms on the campus Tuesday morning. This year it was even more impressive than usual, for the sun was shining brightly, the air was cool and everything seemed to contribute to the occasion* An impressive sight was the solid line of boys, covering almost two sides of the campus, 339 of them in all, young, clean-looking and vigorous, about to go through the last ceremony before they start on their life work.
Then in front of the Administration Building is the group of those who are to receive their honorary degrees, noted educators, scientists and men of affairs, with the President and the Governor of the State leading the procession. Just below them are the faculty, with the oldest at the head and with their variegated gowns showing degrees obtained from universities throughout the world.
The procession starts, goes around the campus twice and then stops in front of Webster Hall to make a lane for the men with honorary degrees, the faculty and even the poor alumni to pass into the hall and listen to the exercises. Space might well be given also to the Governor's staff, except for the fact that it contains the Treasurer of the College and it would be unwise to make any particular comment either "upon their sol dierly appearance or their obviously academic physiognomy.
The concluding event of Commencement week was the Alumni Luncheon participated in by guests and alumni, old and new. The after-dinner speaking was opened by the president of the College who addressed his welcome to the gradu ating class and his farewell for the Commencement season to those who had stayed to the end, turning the duties of presiding officer over to the vice-president of the Alumni Association, Walter H. Lillard 'O5. The alumni listened with pleasure and interest to Chester A. Bolles, president of the graduating class, who spoke for the most recent alumni and Clarence E. Carr '75, representative of the Semi-centennial class, and to two college presidents, President Farrand of Cornell and President Chase 'O4, of the University of North Carolina, who were among the recipients of honorary degrees.
All too soon the reunion and the Commencement are over and the village takes on its wonderfully beautiful and quiet summer aspect.
The observer becomes serious in thought, a little too serious perhaps when one thinks that these fine young chaps have left their playground of four years and are going into the world to meet its problems and its battles. The days of light-heartedness and close comradeship have gone. The twenty or more years of youth are passed, never to come again. Some will succeed beyond their expecta tions, others will fail, if we measure success by the material things of life. Who shall say that he has succeeded, and he has failed? The true measure is service to the world, and it may be rendered by one in a very humble or a very high capacity. He will have succeeded from the Dartmouth standpoint who remembers truly the ideals of the College, strives to maintain them, and keeps enkindled forever his love for the old college on the hill.
The Parade to the Oval, 1915 in line
The procession enters Webster Hall
The President and Governor with recipients of honorary degrees
