PRELUDE

The opening editorial of the incoming editor seemed so promising that we reprint it here. It was entitled "Prelude", and follows:

Annually an old directorate wise in the difficulties of Dartmouth's news sheet sings its swan song. A new directorate, still in the age of illusion, comes into office with a fervent wish to show its originality. And each year as with the years before the changes made are few. The reforms, stillborn, are for the most part nailed up in coffins of oblivion. We conclude that most of the few new things under the sun, have at one time or another been tried on the student body. The new directorate does not expect to make itself immortal by promoting revolutions.

We believe that the position of the paper in undergraduate life makes it particularly able to serve the purposes of interpretation. In its news columns The Dartmouth presents the factual story of events as they occur in Hanover and the outside world. We believe that the editorial column can fill in the gaps between these facts, can connect them and make them intelligible. We hope to be able to interpret administrative action to the undergraduate through a knowledge of the reasons behind such action. We feel that in the capacity of undergraduates we can put a reasonable light upon undergraduate life making its motivation more apparent to administrative powers and faculty. And in the same spirit we shall attempt to give the alumni a view more direct than that of mere rumor.

We are naive enough to chance the indulgent smiles of the campus in the mention of a cultural ideal which the column will endeavor to support. In our scheme of editorial values we place Kriesler or Bauer above even the allabsorbing interest of Harvard vs. Dartmouth. The appearance in Hanover from time to time of good lecturers, of the unusual in an artistic way whether in painting or music, we shall consider as editorial material. An effort will be made to criticise and comment as fairly as possible with a minimum of unintelligent praise. We shall not, however, acquire an evangelical taint in any frantic crusade of esthetic conversion. We will have done more than we can hope for in our pessimistic moods if the column can serve in any way as an intellectual stimulus to men in an institution in which we heartily believe.

There will be an attempt to give the editorial material breadth of interest. At fairlyregular intervals comment will be run on matters of national and international importance. At the same time our chief attention will be given to Hanover, more particularly to Dartmouth College.

It is impossible to draw more than general lines of policy for matters which may have to be dealt with in the year ahead. To do so would only invite contradiction and for this reason we shall leave the solution of future problems to the future. One remark, however may be made. Whatever may happen we hope to maintain consistently our sense of humor. We have found few things on the campus and elsewhere which seen from one angle or another could not draw a smile. And we have come to believe that the dead-inearnest seriousness of a hundred hot little men is far less effective than the disrupting dynamite of an Irish grin.