DARTMOUTH SHOWS HER SPIRIT
The following editorial from the WaterburyAmerican appeared subsequent to the dinner of the Dartmouth Association of Connecticut at Waterbury, April 16: "That no group of college men in America, considered as a group, is animated by a healthier spirit of vigor and verve than the men of Dartmouth, as Rt. Rev. John T. Dallas, a graduate of Yale, graciously assured the Dartmouth alumni of Connecticut last evening, is perhaps something more than an expected bit of polite small-talk. There is actually ground for taking it as a statement of objective fact. Under the energetic and original leadership of Dr. Ernest Martin Hopkins, Dartmouth college is, as a matter of simple truth, exploring new and broad fields of intel- lectual learning, testing new educational methods, fully abreast of the most advanced collegiate institutions in the country.
"In a time of popular preoccupation with utilitarian ideas of the object of a college education, Dr. Hopkins has had courage enough to hold that whether high academic trainingserves any immediate, concrete, practical purpose or not it justifies itself in so far as it teaches its beneficiaries to think, to know the origins of society's traditional ideas, to reappraise those ideas in the light of changed modern conditions, to originate new conceptions, to make use of leisure for creative activity and the enrichment of humanity's intellectual endowment, to see the world whole and to perfect society's facility in living fruitfully in it. Dr. Hopkins not only has had courage enough to adopt and proceed from this towering point of view, but sufficient personal magnetism to win the men of Dartmouth to cordial and devoted support of his leadership.
"Dr. Hopkins it was who, at the very zenith of the "Red" scare, said that if they were available he would invite Lenin and Trotzky to come to Hanover to give their own testimony in behalf of Bolshevism and let Dartmouth analyze it in a spirit of cool, detached intellectual curiosity. This courageous willingness to examine without prejudice every phenomenon within the range of human experience cannot but be attractive to men of active minds. There is that in the air of Hanover which quickens all Dartmouth men into a robust enjoyment of living vigorously, and the vivacity of spirit which comes of that kind of living is no mysterious anomaly, but the natural product of a stimulating cause. To say that no college community has more and few as much dash and elan as Dartmouth is no idle flattery. The men of Dartmouth are ready to stand inspection for verification of the tribute."
