Letters to the Editor

THE '85 GROUP

Editor Dartmouth Alumni Magazine: Before me is the August number of the MAGAZINE which on page 629 contains a picture of '85 men. Those identified by Bowler '13 are correctly named. The ones not named by Mr. Bowler are: 1. Eliphalet Philbrick '85, standing between No. 1 and 2. 2. Geo. Clifton Kimball, seated with baseball bat, next to No. 6 Hovey. 3. Tom Leigh seated below Kimball. 4. John F. Clark '85, non-grad. with straw hat next to Leigh. 5. Elam Lewis Clark '85 n.-g. standing, leaning against shutter, died last spring. 6. Samuel H. Hudson '85 seated below E. L. Clarke, on arm chair, at right side of picture.

I have several photos, which I will send if you desire them.

klhO N. Keeler Ave., Chicago, Ill,

THEN AND NOW

Editor Dartmouth Alumni Magazine: I find myself yielding to the temptation to frame a brief comparison between the Dartmouth of today and my Alma Mater of the Post Civil War period.

The essential difference is between simplicity and complexity.

The trustees were good men but chosen for other reasons than business competence. If they ratified appointments, voted degrees and sat on the platform at commencement they had done well. The faculty were, with an exception or two, pedagogues, earnest, humane, intent on setting a good example, dealing with the "low hangers," the laggards, more from opinion than from the record, and not unwisely, and somewhat swayed by emotion in disciplinary action. The students were largely from neighboring regions and much more homogeneous and, I think I may say, schoolboyish. With only slight variations they pursued the same course from beginning to end. But they got, or could get, four years of education, which is all anyone gets now after groping his way through the vast field of possibilities. Teaching was the only pin-pose of the college organization. The institution was but slightly evolved from the famous log with the professor at one end and the student at the other.

Gradually this college, any large college, has gathered in numerous interests considered helpful to the main purpose. We could almost establish a proportion—as the one full time employee of the old time college (who did not teach) is to the two hundred or more today so are the non-scholastic affairs of the one to those of the other. Today the college is an extensive landlord renting lodgings, offices, apartments and houses; for the sake of good food it manages restaurants and an excellent hotel and is thus able to entertain guests properly; its heating plant does more warming than fifty large furnaces; it lights its buildings with electricity by its own power; it is enough interested in the physical and mental development of its students to require examination by trained men; its facilities for exercise and for sports are preeminent; it maintains lecture organizations, produces musical and dramatic exhibitions up to professional standards; acts as a publishing and distributing bureau; has the organization of a bank for its financial affairs; is part owner of a great water-supply system; operates work-shop and storehouse for its own purposes; maintains an employment agency for its graduating students and carries on many minor enterprises not directly educational but closely related to the welfare of the students.

Although I have seen all these adjuncts develop I continue to regard them with wonder.

And here is the climax. In the college of sixty years ago a student of moderate diligence could have taken all the courses offered to his class within the four-year period. Today, if it were otherwise possible, a lad beginning at the age of eighteen and going on at the usual rate would be well towards fifty-five before he had availed himself of all the educational possibilities.

Hanover, N. E.

A FAMOUS CANE RUSH

Editor Dartmouth Alumni Magazine: In accordance with your favor of Sept. 30, I am enclosing some memoranda of my college life in 1866-70.

I have enclosed in ( ) some remarks about the persons named, merely as information. But will here add further remarks.

Irving W. Drew, mentioned, became prominent in legal and political circles in N. H. and was appointed to fill unexpired term in the U. S. Senate; Channing Folsom became state superintendent of schools in N. H. Johnson, was pitcher for the nine senior year. Woodbury was prominent in medical circles as superintendent of insane asylums in Mass. Sam Page '71, who was treated so roughly in the rushes was prominent in N. H. politics. And Eben Brewer, '71 will long be remembered for his services in the Spanish-American War, where he worked himself to death in the postal service.

And there was an episode in his college life which I will mention here. There was then an unwritten rule that freshmen should not carry canes, before Junior Ex.! Well, one day in the spring, when the campus was still covered with snow, and the college was waiting for Friday afternoon speaking in Dartmouth Hall, Brewer was seen parading across the Campus, S. W. to N. E. carrying a cane! He was intercepted about in front of what was then Senator Patterson's house, site now occupied by the Library—l think. Brewer was a fine, large, powerful lad, and hung on to the cane. Reinforcements from both classes hastened to the fray. He hung on! the "rush" milled across the street past Wentworth, and up into Dartmouth, and up stairs, and down the corridors, with of course, only a few hands holding the cane, but about all the two classes pulling and hauling at each other, and at the men who had the cane! Prof. Sanborn tried in vain to stop it; the rush went on, beyond time for chapel speaking, till at last the president appeared upon the scene! Prexy Smith was always held in high regard by all the students —tho' they often were a thorn in his side, and upon his appearance the "debate" over the cane ceased; the subject matter of the discussion being resolved, as I recall, into several fragments, of which each contesting class had one!

I do not recall any other cane rush during my four years. Maybe the boys then didn't care enough about canes to want to carry them?

In my account of the football rush of April it appears that seniors and juniors took part—and that it did not occur in the fall. I can't now understand how we were rushing football in the spring, unless we were the victims of spring fever?

It has been a pleasure to me to resurrect these old memories, even if they may not interest others.

125 W. Ashley St., Jacksonville, Fla,

IN A FUTURE NUMBER

Editor Dartmouth Alumni Magazine: Last May I spent a week in Guayaquil, Ecuador, waiting for a boat, and had a most interesting time visiting with W. E. Reed, '9O, whom I had previously met in the States. It seemed to me that his story typifies some aspects of the Dartmouth spirit of the past, and that it would interest Dartmouth men, whether they happened to know Reed or not.

Most of the information in the enclosed articles comes from Reed himself, supplemented from other sources.

459 East 123 rd St., Cleveland, Ohio

A MILLION DOLLAR SPORT

Editor Dartmouth Alumni Magazine: Press and periodicals seem worried because football has become a million dollar sport. Well, why not? The players get none of this money. The gate receipts provide athletic programs in colleges for all students; they are used for fields, gymnasiums, and special classes for men under or over weight. In one notable case, Notre Dame, the money goes toward a library building. And could there be a better use for the money?

Primus