College Lectures
Three important series of lectures, arranged and sponsored by the College, have been held this year. One of these, a series known as "Religion in Life" is still in progress and the other two have been completed. Under the provisions of the Alumni Lectureships on the Guernsey Center Moore Foundation, established by the late Henry L. Moore '77, Pres. Hopkins is enabled to invite to Hanover each year one or two outstanding lecturers. The very high standard set by such men as Dean Roscoe Pound, Graham Wallas, E. E. Slosson, Charles Adams Cram and A. N. Whitehead, English philosopher, who have appeared as Moore lecturers in the past, has been maintained by Vilhjalmur Stefansson, explorer and scientist, and Dr. Robert Briffault, English sociologist, this year.
The series on religion, of which two lectures have been given, has proved popular. The preeminence of the speakers as the highest of authorities in their fields has gone far to attract large audiences to Dartmouth Hall to hear religion discussed as an integrating factor in life from the intellectual, the modern, the scientific and the literary points of view. The first of these lectures was given March 5 by Dean Willard L. Sperry of the Harvard Theological School. His subject was: "Religion in the Modern Mind."
Dr. Reinhold Neibuhr, who has become popular at Dartmouth through his numerous visits in past years, gave the second address of the series March 18, and talked on, "Religion in Modern Civilization." Dr. Neibuhr is a member of the faculty at Union Theological Seminary.
The third lecture will be given by one of the foremost figures in the world of science, Dr. Robert A. Millikan, of Pasadena, California. He will talk on "Religion in the Universe of Science," April 15.
The fourth and last of the series comes April 22, when Prof. A. G. Widgery of Cambridge University will lecture on "Religion in Literature."
Willis J. Abbot, editor of the ChristianScience Monitor spent several days in Hanover early in March as a guest of the Christian Association and as a speaker at its International Institute. Mr. Abbot, in the article quoted below which appeared in the Monitor subsequent to his visit, has set down his observations of the College in its daily life as seen by one previously unfamiliar with Hanover. His article is titled "Dartmouth— A College in the Hills."
"From the broad window of my room in one of the most delightful of country inns, I could look down on the main street of Hanover, all ablaze with the light from the windows of the handful of shops that make up the town's Great White Way. The snow that had fallen during the afternoon was still unsullied, and its pure white radiance made the immediate foreground as bright as day, although but a few yards away the college yard was pitchy dark, with here and there a sparkling light. Everywhere were lusty youthboys of college age who, being collegians, must henceforth be described as men. Except for the bizarre gayety of their garb the scene might be ascribed as monastic, for nowhere was a feminine form or a flying skirt visible. When you put 2500 youths into a town the total population of which, in their absence, does not exceed 1200, you get an effect of masculine predominance not often presented.
"Accustomed as I am to the co-educational campuses of Western state colleges—like Michigan or Illinois—where the girls are quite as much in evidence as men (co-eds are not insistent upon the word 'women' with its implications of maturity), I found a certain fascination in watching the crowds of collegians milling back and forth in the dusk just preceding the dinner hour. It was an eager and a nipping air without, in the early days of March, but in the main bare heads were the rule, and shaggy locks withstood the cold.
"Only freshmen-—doomed for their callowness to wear caps of verdant green—seemed to cover their heads, which, to one unused to the bite of the air in the New Hampshire hills, seemed to make it worth while being a freshman. And what an array of raiment was spread before the observer! It occurred to him that Dartmouth in winter offered slight inducements to tailors. Mackinaws were evidently the costume de rigeur—scarlet, green, checked, striped, seldom fitting, usually flapping, and supported below by bags or knickerbockers with ski boots that seemed to bear no relation of form or fit to the young legs incased. Like Teufelsdroehk in his tower, I could look down on the people and reflect with him, 'Clothes gave us individuality, distinctions, social polity; Clothes have made Men of us; they are threatening to make Clothes-screens of us.' But not at Dartmouth.
"A sort of nonconformist atmosphere hangs over the ancient school and I can imagine the intellectual processes of its people as being as original and as full of variety as the clothing of the students on that March day. Daniel Webster remains the most distinguished alumnus, and his hame is found honored on every hand as one wanders about the campus. But I think a more progressive sense in matters social and political animates faculty and student body alike than was ever manifested by the great champion of New England federalism. For, after all, that orotund orator served as anchor rather than sail to the American ship of state. Mr. Gamaliel Bradford, discussing his career in a volume just published, claims only for him that by steadily supporting compromises, and even surrenders, on the slavery question, he delayed the Civil War ten years, during which time the North and West grew strong enough to defeat the South. This belated rejoinder to Whittier's savage poem of invective, 'lchabod,' ought to be popular at Dartmouth, though I doubt whether the general feeling there would accept Webster's conservatism in the face of a great humanitarian problem today. The president of the college, Dr. Ernest M. Hopkins, is a true liberal and must impress his intellectual convictions upon faculty and students alike.
"Dartmouth is what is called a 'small' college—and indeed the name was first bestowed upon it by the great Daniel himself in a phrase so often quoted that it must be as ashes to the taste of any Dartmouth man. But after all, it is small only in comparison with the complete student bodies of universities which count in attendants upon their professional schools. Dartmouth is a college— not a university—and in its department of liberal arts are enrolled more than 2000 students—a number quite as large as that of the students taking similar courses in great universities. And at that it is only about one fifth as large as it would be except for the the process of selection by which four out of five applicants for admission are weeded out. Into this process I do not purpose going further than to say that scholarship alone is not the test by which would-be matriculants are judged—character, social grace, athletic prowess, all enter into the equation—and contrary to the general opinion the sons of Dartmouth alumni are not given undue preference in the sifting process.
"The student body of Dartmouth not only presents a monastic air because of the almost complete absence of the fair sex, but also appears distinctly Nordic. Only twenty-seven students come from lands outside the territorial boundaries of the United States and of these, eight are from Canada. Never- theless, there is nothing nstrrow or provincial about the tone of the college. A fortnight ago the Christian Association staged a sort of international institute with speakers from outside the college faculty. The Oriental impact upon Western civilization, Pan- American problems, and the foreign relations of the United States were the topics under discussion. Professors yielded up their rooms and classes for the moment and the discussions were, for the most part, incorporated in the regular day's work of a section of the students. No more eager or appreciative audiences could have been desired.
"Fire has dealt harshly with Dartmouth and ancient buildings are not its strong point. But one would search far and wide to find a more beautiful library building than that presented by Mr. George F. Baker. Literary folk always have a taste for comfortable and attractive reading rooms in great libraries—rooms that are the very antithesis of the British Museum's circular workshop, or the cold rectangle of New York's classic edifice. Ideal reading places are the great libraries of the Century Association and the University Club in New York, the Farns- worth Room at Harvard, or the stately quietude of Pierpont Morgan's library just off Madison Avenue, New York. But Dartmouth, far off in the hills and enveloped in a silence which only the calm of the country can maintain, has in the so-called Tower Room of its new library one of the most attractive, comfortable and spacious reading rooms imaginable.
"Apparently it is not designed for study- on the main floor of the library, more conveniently placed for the stacks, and lined with books of reference, are rooms for this purpose. Rather the Tower Room—which is by no means limited to a tower, but extends the whole length of the building, is designed for pleasure reading and is furnished as comfortably and decoratively as any club reading room. Etchings, drawings and paintings adorn the Walls; the furniture—unlike the stools of repentance with which too many libraries are furnished—is well stuffed and invites to the languorous leisure in which books should be enjoyed; deep window embrasures fitted with cozy seats enable the reader to turn meditatively from his pages to the verdure, or the dazzling snows, of the surrounding hills.
"I noticed that the books strewn about in profusion were in many instances of limited editions, or in costly bindings, thus accustoming the young folk to handle the finer types of volumes and further training their tastes in the worth of beauty. All in all, Tower Room impressed me as a proper setting for that Professorship of Leisure which some college is certain to endow.
"The first president of Dartmouth was Dr. Eleazar Wheelock. His assistant rejoiced in the name of Bezaleel Woodward. Its original purpose was to frunish Indian youth with Christian education. The dusky pagans have long since disappeared before the onward march of the whites whose civilizing methods were no less harsh than their Christian names. No Pottawatomie or Sioux ever bore a more cacophonous title. Yet despite the disappearance of its aborigines Dartmouth is seemingly a most thoroughly American place of higher education. The same Webster who defended its rights in a historic law suit may well have been writing its motto when he said: 'Knowledge is the only fountain both of the love and the principles of human liberty.'"
