Letters to the Editor

SEE FIRST EDITORIAL IN THIS ISSUE

Concord, N. H.

Dear Mr. Editor:

The ALUMNI MAGAZINE often asks for suggestions and one occurred to me on the night which I spent in Hanover during Carnival Week.

From family letters written by Dartmouth students a century ago, and from the diaries of clergymen of the same period, I am impressed with the value of a custom then highly regarded as an administrative measure, the process of sequestration.

It appears that in the college body drunkenness was then very common, perhaps not as common as now but still a real obstacle in the way of serious study. As a euphemistic term, repeated drunkenness was called disorderly walk" and suspension was called "rustication." The student overcome by the habit pf disorderly walk was rusticated for a term at the home of some forceful and erudite pastor in Lyme, Thetford, Cornish, Piermont or other Connecticut valley town. Here he helped with the chores and received tutorial assistance in his Greek and mathematics. The nights were long and the family routine restful. Most students returned rehabilitated and passed successful examinations. In most cases they were converted during the mid-winter revival season and later they married the clergyman's youngest daughter.

This process cannot be restored to the Dartmouth system without slight modifications, due to the scarcity of clergymen, revivals and daughters in Lyme, Thetford, Cornish and Piermont but, fortunately, our laws and state administration permit a modern substitute.

There is at Horse Meadow, North Haverhill, the very excellent county farm for Grafton county. It has broad fields, clean and attractive buildings and a routinized life. Of course residents are admitted by a selective process but our laws allow the local judge to secure admission for those addicted to disorderly walk or, in the cruder words of the law, to "habitual drinkards." I suggest that in the place of expulsion or toleration, arrangements be made so that students in considerable number have for half-semesters the advantages of this institution. I am rather enthusiastic over the possibilities. The site is salubrious and the temptations of a populous center, that is, Woodsville, are several miles removed. There are natural terraces which readily could be used for ski jumping and during the winter the required work at the barn and in the woods is hardly more than the college standards for recreation. Perhaps the library would be rather inadequate but there is a very complete small hospital with an experienced staff as this institution has long specialized in the care of those to whom disorderly walk has become a habit.

The one disadvantage in the plan would seem to be the absence of the clergyman tutor but this might readily be overcome if the judge by judicious selection admitted students and members of the faculty to the institution in a fixed and carefully determined ratio, perhaps one professor or assistant and two instructors to each twenty students.

The plan seems to me to have great merit and I hope that after consideration it will receive as forceful approval as a dignified journal can properly give.

THE ROOD HOUSE BAND

Concord, N. H.

Editor Dartmouth Alumni Magazine:—

I have attended to your general assignment to all your reporters and while I may be a little late in turning in my copy, I believe I have all the details. The Rood House mystery is solved as to the "Band" as follows: rear row, left to right, "Bruin Baehr 90, varsity pitcher; "Moxie" Weeks 92, varsity halfback; "Buck" Lord '92, recently New Hampshire state senator; "Striker" Duntley '92, catcher of his class team. Center row, "Cub" Baehr '92, "Bruin's" younger brother and varsity substitute; Bill Segur, D. M. C., football star and author of the Dartmouth song; Gil. Price '92, the Beau Brummell athlete of his day; Walter Thompson '92, varsity first baseman; Pitt Joyce, D.M. C. class team player; Leon Scruton '90, varsity pitcher and fullback. Front row, Mel Shurtleff 92, varsity pitcher, and Archie Ranney, D. M. C., Dartmouth's greatest catcher.

This aggregation won the dining club championship of 1890 from the Crowley Club, which had five varsity men in its line-up and Dan Jones '90 and "Chub" Hartshorn '92, as battery, by a score of 9-0. Shurtleff struck out 21 of his opponents. It was a great victory and worthily celebrated.

The attention of the younger generation of alumni should be called to the substitute for a bass drum upon which the score of the game is inscribed in the picture. This article is one of the historic tin bath tubs in which was done practically all of the bathing that Dartmouth did up to 1900.

Yours very truly,

WHY THEY WERE SUSPENDED!

18 Tremont St., Boston, Mass.

Dartmouth Alumni Magazine

The March copy of the magazine has just reached me and I was pleased to know that the publication in your February issue of the picture of the "Bum Hollow Baseball aggregation taken in the early 'Bo's aroused the interest which it appears to among the graduates of that period, some of whom have written you. Had you had the space to repeat the cut with the identifying letters I am sure it would have added to the interest taken in it.

I find so much in the March issue relating to my class and the period it knew so well, including the fine article by Pordyce Cleaves '87 on my classmate, Dick Hovey, that I wish to repeat my request that you send copies of the March issue to each member of my class who is not a subscriber and forward the bill to me.

The picture of " '85 Suspended," on page 286 of the issue brings back a well-remembered and then considered serious and important Sophomoric incident in our college course.

The cause of our suspension was the positive refusal made by each of us, individually, to disclose at an inquisitorial meeting of the faculty our whereabouts on the preceding Saturday evening, early in the month of February, 1883.

The incident which occurred on the aforesaid Saturday evening, regarding which the faculty seemed so determined to satisfy its curiosity, was a midnight serenade of one of our professors, and a somewhat unsubstantiated rumor that our class were the sole promoters and participants in this disgraceful escapade."

Each of us was hunted up and summoned by "Tute" Cooper to appear at once before the faculty, and in response, each of us separately and with greater or less trepidation climbed the stairs to the then faculty headquarters on the second floor of the brick bank building, which stood on Main Street next north of where the College commons is now located. "Prexy" Bartlett presided, interrogated and sentenced to "indefinite suspension" each man of us who refused to give a satisfactory explanation of his doings upon that eventful Saturday evening.

The news spread quickly through the village, and it soon became known that it was a wholesale suspension, as practically all members of the class then in town were included. By the edict of suspension our position in town at once became anomalous,—we were "about" but not "in" the college; we wandered back and forth holding class meetings, at which we voted to stand together, as we had fallen together.

We received from the class of '85 Bowdom College, the following very fraternal and stimulating message:

"Class of '85 of Bowdoin sends greeting to Dartmouth '85. We hear you are in a row. We know what it means. We killed ourselves by not hanging together. Profit by our experience and STICK IT OUT. We know faculties.

This renewed our courage and determination, but the faculty took a very natural, but not a reassuring or comforting step (to us), by immediately notifying the parents, guardians, and other "in loco parentis" of our insubordination and resulting suspension, and sought their cooperation to induce us to recant.

We felt at the time that this step of the faculty was taking undue advantage of us, for while we might show some boldness and bravado in dealing with the faculty, we were not prepared to use that procedure upon those at home, and within two weeks we so far regained our senses that we decided to recant, capitulate and surrender, and in class meeting voted to mutually release each other so that each of us could deal with the faculty as he deemed best, and very soon we, one by one, retraced our steps to the faculty headquarters and with as much good grace as we could command, submitted to such interrogations as were made to us.

It is needless to say that our reception by "Prexy" Bartlett and his associates was much more gracious and pleasant than our previous encounter, and so, in the words to which you have referred, of that ever genial and peren nial Hanoverian, Lon Gove, "we all came back,"—through the same door from which we had so recently gone boldly out; our dire sentence of indefinite suspension was withdrawn, and we were once more in and of the college,—perhaps sadder, but surely wiser young men, for we had learned the important lesson that the faculty held the governing hand in the college, and it is perhaps unnecessary to remark that we later came to esteem that particular professor as one of our best teachers and friends.

Should you care for the identification of the suspended group, the following is the correct list:

Those standing from left to right: Deacon Hulbert, now a retired minister in St. Paul; "Tanglefoot" Chellis, then well known on the baseball field (deceased); Joe Blaisdell (deceased); then the wearer of the five tall hats, Bean (deceased); Dick Hovey (deceased); Ed Bayley, lawyer in Boston; Arza Armes, minister, Northwood Centre, New Hampshire; Len Hatch (deceased); Amos Lyford, class valedictorian (deceased); Dick Currier, Barre, Vermont.

The next row, sitting in chairs: "Gilsey" Bates (deceased); "Boots" Bouton (deceased); Dr. Warren S. Adams, New York City; Alton E. Briggs, Boston; Cliff Kimball (deceased); Arthur W. Whitcomb, Evanston Illinois; Judge Nathan Washburn, boro, Mass; Henry Hubbard, Candia, New Hampshire.

Front row, sitting on floor: Will Wakefield, lawyer, Spokane, Washington; E. C. Thomas (deceased); H. C. Bryan (deceased); "Life" Philbrick of Boston, New England Manager of the American Surety Company; Billie O'Brien (deceased); Perley Weeks with his dog in his arms and his traveling bag, ready to leave town (deceased); John Philbrick (deceased); Bert Foster (deceased); "Buckie" Towle, directly in front of Foster, St. Paul, Minnesota, and Charles Darling (deceased)'.

The picture was taken at the Langill studio, which stood between the Dartmouth Hotel and the old gymnasium, Bissell Hall.

Trusting that you have other period pictures to present, and thanking you in behalf of my classmates for reviving the memory of our sophomorie suspension, I am,

Very cordially yours,

A WINNING BASEBALL TEAM Again we crave the reader's pardon for lack of information. These champions of 1884 quite look the part. The catcher wore a mask, but sleeves and gloves are not much in evidence.