That Gradus Ad Parnassum

C. E. Crane '06 edits a column in the Brattleboro Reformer called "Pen-Drift." On November 16, the day of the Cornell Dartmouth game in Hanover, he ran the following items relative to the display of the old original Dartmouth Library as now exhibited in the Baker Library: BRATTLEBOBO, Nov. 16.

There's an added attraction to the Dartmouth-Cornell game at Hanover today that may escape attention of the football fans, but to the Pendrifter it is quite as thrilling as an added touchdown. Over at the new Baker memorial library building there has been restored as approximately as possible the old original library used by the Indian students of Dartmouth college, 1764 to 1780. Of the original 394 books, 211 have been restored after much work on the part of the librarians in salvaging these relics from attics, basements and many odd corners, and as a climax of the search they have unearthed the original Gradus ad Parnassum.

Even if you are not a Dartmouth graduate you doubtless have heard that saga in song by Richard Hovey, also author of the fa- mous Stein Song, of the class of '85, who wrote: Oh, Eleazar Wheelock was a very pious man: He went into the wilderness to teach the In-di-an, With a Gradus ad Parnassum, a Bible and a drum, And five hundred gallons of New England rum.

I don't know how it is in these days, but 25 years ago that song was sung with more pathos than almost any other Dartmouth song, and that Gradus ad Parnassum, Bible, drum and that five hundred gallons of New England rum were as something sacramental to every Dartmouth student.

For my part I own that I did not know what a Gradus ad Parnassum was in my freshman year. I think it vaguely took form in my mind as a Magna Charta, or some imposing royal grant; and I never stopped to make practical use of my Latin to define it as "a step to Parnassus," or a dictionary to aid in Latin verse-making. It sang well, anyhow, and like Mesopotamia we rolled its sonorous syllables through the campus night air, along with the Bible and the drum, and that five hundred gallons of New England rum, in a way that would have done credit to the original Dartmouth Indians.

Indeed, if that song means as much to other Dartmouth men as it did to me, they will all feel a satisfaction that that original dictionary of prosody with which the pious Wheelock entered into wilderness to teach the heathen has at last been found, and is now to be seen along with a Bible and a drum (the latter presented by Mr. Lewis Parkhurst) in the tower room of the Baker library. Practically all of the books in this original library, says an article in the current Dartmouth AIXTMNI MAGAZINE, were given to Moor's Charity School in Lebanon, Connecticut (which was the forerunner of Dartmouth College) and to the college itself by friends of the institution in England and Scotland. Names of many of the donors appear in the fly leaves. Indian signatures, many of them obviously executed with much labor, adorn the pages of some of the volumes, such as Lilly's Grammar, a Child's Christian Education, etc., and one book, The BritishInstructor, contains the signature of Peggy, who was Eleazar Wheelock's little daughter.

The Gradus ad Parnassum has the name "Jeremy Belknap" printed across the page ends—treasured particularly because Jeremy Belknap was one of the early friends and admirers of Dartmouth. There are also the signatures of John Ledyard and that of old Eleazar himself to be found among the books, most of which are treatises on the Christian religion. Daniel Kirtland, father of the famous missionary, and founder of Hamilton College, has left his signature in a fat brown quarto, Heereboort's Melemata Philosophica . . . and this is a volume which his son might well have used at Princeton or carried into the Mohawk country. Although 90 per cent of the books are of a religious nature, there are a few of secular appeal. Among these are Neal's History of New England, Baker's Employment for the Microscope . . together with Instructions for Printing off any Medal or Coin, and many other quaint volumes. Two of a threatening cast are Shower's Reflections onTime and Eternity, and Allein's Alarm toUnconverted Sinners I

It is doubtful that this exhibition of Dartmouth's original Indian library will seriously detract from the attendance at the Cornell game, but it is a real contribution which the librarians have made in getting this material together, and as the disciples of Eleazar Wheelock go on multiplying down through the ages this Gradus ad Parnassum along with Wheelock's Bible and Drum will be hallowed forever in Hovey's song. It is to be regretted that at least one gallon of the 500 gallons of the N. E. Rum hasn't been handed down to posterity, too; but, alas, it probably didn't last through even the first semester.