NEW DORMITORY NAMED GILE HALL
The new dormitory, now being constructed on Tuck Drive west of Hitchcock, will be known as "Gile Hall" in memory of Dr. John M. Gile, a graduate of the College in the class of 1887 and for many years a Dartmouth trustee and dean of the Medical School here. Naming the new dormitory comes as the action of the trustees and is announced by President Hopkins.
The death of Dr. Gile, July IS, 1925, was considered by the members of Dartmouth's Board of Trustees not only a personal sorrow but also a great official loss. Dr. Gile chose, against attractive and enticing offers continuously through his life, to remain in Hanover and to make his great surgical skill available throughout the whole North Country. It is impossible to exaggerate either the respect or the personal affection in which he was held within a radius of hundreds of miles of Hanover.
Meanwhile, as teacher in and dean of the Medical School, he rendered painstaking service to the College.
Most of all, however, as a member of the Board of Trustees and as a close associate and confidant of the President, he was invaluable. Particularly was this true in the development of the policy having to do with the handling of the College Grant in the northern part of the State, which wilderness of mountains, rivers, and forests has never been so completely known to any man as to him. The administration of this special interest of the College was made his particular responsibility, and with uncanny instincts he disposed of the timber holdings of the College at most profitable terms and made the operating expense incidental to the College efficient but economical.
It would be difficult to estimate the value of his services in concrete terms; but financial relief, to the extent of hundreds of thousands of dollars, previously unsuspected as available had been made possible to the College by his time-consuming and strength-exhausting operations at this one point.
At the Commencement exercises of 1924 the honorary degree of Doctor of Science was given Dr. Gile who was then trustee of the College. In conferring the degree at that time President Hopkins characterized the recipient as follows:
"Skilled practitioner and beloved minister of healing, now these many years, to those within the wide boundaries of the New England north countrysiderightful possessor of the confidence of those for whom your ministrations have continuingly been given without favor and without stint; to whose adaptable genius the logman's hut, the farmer's cottage, and the facilities of modern hospitals have alike been accepted as affording opportunity for rendering needful service; careful scholar, whose desire for knowledge has been in part that this might be utilized for the good of mankind and in part that its influence might be made infectious from the teacher's desk; neighbor, associate and friend, in accord with an all but unanimous vote of the Trustees of Dartmouth College, I confer upon you the honorary degree of Doctor ofScience."
John M. Gile '87
