Again Among the Hills

FOB alumni returning in a period of transition the journey back to Hanover is always shadowed by persistent doubts. They will find again the camaraderie of sometime undergraduate companions: friendships of long standing will be strengthened; new friendships will be made with men remembered dimly if at all. Yet not even the anticipated pleasures of reuning can keep from them some fear that Hanover has changed past recognition since they went to classes, or that the undergraduates will prove quite different from the classmates they recall. That town, College, undergraduates have altered, any of the 800-odd alumni who came back this June from every corner of America will confirm. But none, we think, will voice the least regret. Dartmouth is like a friend who has prospered without losing vigor, who has found new opportunities without losing touch with old.

While new buildings stand or are rising everywhere, one does not miss those that have gone, so naturally do the new blend into the familiar scene. Main Street now boasts a Georgian combination firehouse and police headquarters, fancier sandwich shops, another jeweler. The Nugget has a portico and lobby. But Main Street is still as popular for idling, calls for toast sides as noisy, and the movie audiences as boisterous as when the Greasy Spoon was famous and the Nugget s doors easily gave way before an impatient crowd. Nor do the new library, dormitories and other College buildings appear aught but a natural development of the College one returned to see.

Throughout the College building program a nice balance seems to have prevailed. On the one hand are new buildings for the liberal arts departments, for science, and for Tuck School, which last, now under construction on the plain south of Tuck Drive, will provide living quarters, a dining hall and library as well as class rooms for its members. On the other, Dick s House, that incomparable place to go when not quite fit, a D. O. C. House at the north end of Faculty Pond, a field house, and an indoor hockey rink. With the completion in the next few months of the new dormitory behind Fayerweather Row, living in solitude off campus will no longer be necessary for any. And one notes with more than interest that the number of trees planted far exceeds those the new buildings have destroyed.

Outstanding among the achievements of this expansion is the incorporation of three museums (scientific, art and dramatic) in the College plant. Heretofore, Dartmouth has had to make the best of miscellaneous collections and occasional exhibits. The museums now opened form a nucleus from which much may be expected to evolve. Most astonishing of all is the conversion of the old Wilson Library, a building not particularly suited to museum purposes; yet the lighting is excellent, and the exhibits, as in the art gallery, well spaced and mounted, displayed simply, without crowding, in accordance with the best modern practice. The basement is devoted to geology and mineralogy, the first floor to biology, the second to ethnology. There are birds and fish and costumes, Assyrian reliefs from Nineveh, a model of the giant tusks of Elephas Ganesa, and, in the entrance hall, a resplendent Concord Coach, the type used over the road from Boston before the railroad was put through, then from the station up to Hanover as late as 1912. The art gallery, on the third floor of the new Carpenter art building, has changing shows, that at Commencement comprising sculpture, water colors, etchings, lithographs and a splendid collection of photographs of the College. In the basement of Sanborn House, the new home of the English department, are models of historic theaters which portray the development of theater buildings from the days of Greece. Small wonder men of the class of '75 in Hanover this June marvelled at the equipment of the College!

Commencement formalities vary little from year to year, and in scheduled functions those of 1930 were not unusual. Friday, June 13, found the alumni arriving. It was hot, as one of them put it, "as hot as in various fundamentalist zones." Uniforms were soon in evidence about the campus, reunions under way, and save for an occasional airplane (two enterprising alumni returned by air, and now there are passenger planes in the neighborhood), incessant radios and whirring movie cameras, the afternoon and evening provided only the general gaiety that everyone expected. The older classes chatted underneath the trees, the younger left for dinners at inns and cabins not far from town. Nevertheless, the youngest '25 and '27 were on hand early Saturday for a ball game on the campus whose result, of course, will always be a subject for dispute.

There were the regular Commencement entertainments by the Musical Clubs and The Players, both exuberant and betimes pleasantly rowdy, after the manner of all such undergraduate productions. We promised ourselves no unfair comparisons. Yet perhaps we may be allowed a memory of Bill Embree, Alan Vincent, Werner Janssen and the rest of a decade or so ago (is it quite that?). Yes, we concede the new generation of Dartmouth men much; not the equals of those musical comedy lights, however. Still, we enjoyed ourselves, and the audience was obviously delighted.

For the indefatigable Professor Longhurst, we have only wonder. One fancies that his Commencement labors rival those of the administrative officers. Band concerts nightly, genial, sometimes properly sentimental music under the elms; a musical show whipped into shape; daily music on the chimes; a symphony concert; these suggest his activities. We sincerely regret not being fitted to comment critically upon the concert given by the symphony orchestra of professors, undergraduates, townspeople and children; for to us from New York it seemed surprisingly good. At least, to some the program will suggest its range and interest: Die Meistersinger (Overture), Wagner; UnfinishedSymphony (Ist movement), Schubert; Danse Macabre, Saint-Saens; Nut Cracker Suite, Tschaikowsky; PetiteSuite, Debussy; Spanish Rhapsody, Chabrier.

By Class Day (Saturday) the alumni had arrived in force. The class of 1910, in white linen trousers with green side stripes, green frock coats and white top hats, took the unofficial prize for picturesqueness; 1927, which dressed its members in Indian suits and feathered headdresses, that for the most uncomfortable. The seniors proceeding to their ceremonies stretched along the whole west side of the campus and half way round the south, in striking contrast to the old senior fence. The last precision born of the war is gone. Throughout, these seniors walked; they never marched. But they were none the less sturdy for that, a fine looking body of men, whose vigorous spirit was soon made clear by their spokesmen. Indeed, it was the speeches of this 1930 Commencement that were most remarkable, and they are, therefore, treated together later. At the Bema, Edwin Hendrie Grant, in the traditional war paint and feathers, delivered the Sachem's prophecies; Richard Anthony Parker, the class poem, a well handled piece of writing which in its tribute to New Hampshire's hills, to clear, independent thinking, and to courageous living gave expression to Dartmouth's spirit with felicity. A message of good fortune from Hugh Albert Johnson at the Old Pine with families crowded round, and Class Day ended in a shower of pipes.

The Rev. Benjamin M. Washburn '07, rector of Emmanuel Church, Boston, preached the Baccalaurea sermon in a thronged Rollins Chapel, on one of the hottest Commencement Sundays remembered. Asking the men of 1930 to set a watch lest all the old traditions be forgotten, Dr. Washburn called on them at the same time for independence of thought and conduct, for courage to withstand pressure from fashions of the hour. At the end of the afternoon the President and Mrs. Hopkins received Commencement visitors at their new home, opened three years ago, on Webster Avenue.

To insure a full attendance, the alumni luncheon was this year wisely held on Monday. A ten-inning baseball game from which Dartmouth emerged victorious over Cornell brought the crowd into the evergreendecorated gymnasium in an enthusiastic mood. Cheers and songs rang out as at a Harvard game, and the good spirits were heightened by the announcements. Gifts to the College during the year, including Mr. Baker's generous endowment of the library, amounted to some $1,300,000; in the relations of College, undergraduates and alumni, it had been, Prexy said, a "particularly good year"; more than 700 alumni, through the Secretaries Association, various committees, etc., are now actively working on behalf of the College. Reports of the Alumni Council and the elections are given else where in this issue. The award of the Commencement attendance cup, however, deserves attention here. As Clarence McDavitt, himself '00, pointed out in awarding it, the class of 1900 had won it at every opportunity, since it was first presented. Nevertheless, this year it went to the 50-year class, 1880, of whose twenty-two living members nineteen came back to Hanover.

Mr. John D. Rockefeller, Jr., speaking at the luncheon, expressed profound appreciation for President Hopkins and for what Dartmouth is doing. "If a boy comes to me for advice on what college to attend," he declared, "I should suggest that he find out what college Dr. Hopkins is president of and go there." To the senior class he said: ."This world has no prize to offer, whether it be wealth, power or position, that is worth having at the price of tarnished honor or a guilty conscience." Mr. Rockefeller emphasized his point by quoting an unnamed writer who told his son to live "so that you can look any damned man in the eye and tell him to go to hell."

Commencement morning (Tuesday) brought familiar rumors of unfortunate seniors who, oversleeping, had, in years gone by, reached Webster too late for their degrees to be awarded. The class of 1930 had no such casualties; it graduated 419 members, a number secononly to last year's 439. So long was the academic procession that it required a quarter of an hour to enter Webster Hall. Could he have been there, the expression of the famous Daniel, whose enthusiasm for his "little college" was long since proverbial, would have been worth watching. But we believe that like the member of the class of '77 who was in Hanover for the first time since graduation he would have been extremely pleased.

President Hopkins conferred eight honorary degrees this year, about the usual number. Four went to Dartmouth graduates. The recipients included William D. Knight 'OB, States Attorney for Winnebago County, Ill., (Master of Arts); Dr. William Gerry Morgan '90, President of the American Medical Association, Washington, D. C., and Dr. Jesse Krekore Marden '95, medical missionary, Athens, Greece, (Doctors of Science); Timothy Cole, wood engraver, Poughkeepsie, N. Y., and William Gillette, actor and playwright, Hadlyme, Conn., (Doctors of Letters); Thomas William Proctor '79, lawyer, Boston, Mass.; Thomas Nelson Perkins, lawyer and fellow of Harvard University, and Charles Vincent Massey, Canadian Minister to the United States, (Doctors of Laws). Of the advanced degrees, one was for Doctor of Philosophy, six Master of Arts, and seven for Civil Engineering. Seventeen degrees of Master of Commercial Science were awarded in May.

Alumni, critically eyeing the seniors, listening to their representatives speak, were warm in their praise of the new Dartmouth men. "New" is inaccurate. In their appearance, in their friendliness, in the ruggedness of their temper, the seniors of 1930 appeared not materially different from earlier generations who tramped the campus and in the Spring rains cursed "whatever brute and blackguard made the world." Where 1930 differed to more than one observer was in the decided benefits it seemed to have derived from the larger opportunities Dartmouth now offers to its students.

In his valedictory address, President Hopkins emphasized to the seniors that the purpose of the cultural college is more to create a habit of mind than to transmit the exact details of knowledge. "Today," he said, "God most surely may be found in the reverence of the reflective mind, and in the sensitiveness of the willing spirit." If one were to choose two qualities characteristic of the undergraduate speeches throughout the Commencement week-end, those two would inevitably prove to be courageously reflective minds and willing spirits. "We expect you to distinguish yourselves in social service," Professor C. L. Stone '17 told the graduating class at the alumni luncheon; and if we are to judge by the speeches of its representatives the class of 1930 gives promise of just such valuable achievement. The combination of a stern realism with hopeful idealism, which Dr. Washburn called for in his Baccalaureate sermon, rang through the undergraduate speeches without exception. And nicely balanced as it was by independent and courageous reasoning the speeches of the week-end, typical of undergraduate thought today as they seemed to be, held a significance that few Commencement addresses can have surpassed.

"All of us," declared Collier Hudson Young in his address to the College, "will be ready to turn a respectful eye towards the past and an expectant eye towards the future."* His assurance is not without foundation. Scanning the undergraduate speeches one finds Frederick Clark Scribner, Jr., analysing prohibition with far more honesty than that discouraging problem is accustomed to receive, and calling on college graduates to "stop being hypocrites," to work "earnestly and openly" to bring the law into conformity with the facts. One finds Hugh Meade Alcorn, Jr., scornfully denouncing that widespread disregard for any personally inconvenient law so common in America today; Richard Landis Funkhouser asking, in the interest of rational progress, for intelligently reasoned intolerance of the status quo; and Roger Eastman Ela making a direct appeal to the educated man to supplant the professional politician in the administration of public affairs. .

To such young men of Dartmouth the alumni may be proud indeed to doff their hats, extend a welcoming hand and give a rouse.

1900 BEUNING WITH 71 PER CENT ATTENDING

CLASS OF 1990

THE TWENTY-YEAR REUNION OF 1910, WITH SEVENTY PRESENT

THE TWENTY-FIVE TEAR CLASS 1905

THE CLASS OF 1915 ASSEMBLED AT ITS HEADQUARTERS, RUSSELL SAGE HALL

THE CLASS OF 1885 HOLDING ITS FORTY-FIFTH

ADDRESS OF WELCOME Delivered by John French, Jr., president of the class of 1930

THE SENIORS LINING TTP AT WEBSTER HALL FOR THE COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES

DEAN LAYCOCK, GOVERNOR TOBEY AND PRESIDENT HOPKINS LEADING THE PROCESSION

AT THE OLD PINE H. A. Johnson, Jr., delivering the traditional address to the graduating class