The Undergraduate Chair

Notwithstanding all the comment that passes about the weather in Hanover the crack that there are only two seasons, summer and winter, and like time-worn slurs every day here, be it one of those oozing lateMarch days when the campus is a welter of mud, or one of these dripping Fall days, finds at least a few supporters. Even that brief period which annually brings the mists and fog out of the mountain and dumps them on our heads has come and gone with an unusual amount of relish witness our rather heartening experience. As we were jouncing precariously home from Lyme, cursing the weak-mindedness which had led us so far from home on this sodden and lugubrious day, we came upon three freshmen trudging along, rain dropping from caps and noses and ears. As we slowed down they turned and waved us scornfully on, not even deigning to break the harmony which they were thrusting into the thick air. We drove on, and the rain bothered us no more.

Hanover has always seemed a trifle smug to us (yes, even Hanover!) when we enter it after having spent a little time in the outdoors which stretches away from the town on every side . . . All of which brings about the thought that Hanover itself is loved not so much as the things it implies. It implies Mink Brook moving coldly and sluggishly along through a bright maze of underbrush, Balch Hill dressed up for the football games, the limitless horizons unfolding away from Skyline, warm food in cabins far from town in weather below zero—we could go on almost interminably if we didn't know how familiar the ground was to all.

We don't want to leave the impression, however, that we have been referring to the days and weeks just past—can there be anything better than these hills during the fall of the year when one awakens with the dew quick and cold upon the window, walks out into a whole day of chill, colorful clearness, and goes to bed to hear the leaves rustle and scrape against the roofs and the pavements in their short downward journeys? There's a crispness in the air which leaves almost nothing to be desired . . . and we also know that Dartmouth's occasionally questionable notoriety about being a college of hikers is justifiable insofar as it recognizes that our location here is in itself one of the prime facts in making ours what is sometimes facetiously termed a liberal education.

Matters of all kinds are concerning the campus just at present. Palaeopitus' supposedly generous move in releasing this bunch of yearlings from all restraint seems to have had a boomerang effect. At any rate, some nearly incredible reports have reached our ears. In Wheeler, for instance, it is rumored that 1935 gathered en masse, called forth the powerless sophomores, and put them through the ingenious paces which fresh prep-school minds find so easy to devise . . . and it is perfectly authentic that one innocuous sophomore wound like a watch, grew like grass, scampered like a mouse, and went through the entire familiar rigmarole one night for the edification of some of his sturdier underclassmates. This is such an unknown phenomenon that the upper classes still gawp at it despairingly; perhaps by next month they will decide on some real step, and so provide a little copy for your contributor. Then there is the rumor that house-parties may be put by in recognition of the national crisis, a rumor without any foundation yet. We suppose that such a proposal would be accepted if it were made by the proper source, but there is something in the hackneyed argument that it permits us our sole home social bout, so to speak. Thus does the campus hope rather resentfully against it.

All of which makes us remember with some little satisfaction the full and enthusiastic endorsement given the plan submitted by Owen D. Young to play a post-season roundrobin for the Unemployment Fund by the College at large, represented by Palaeopitus, and by the members of the football team who donated their services to a man. We daresay that we feel particularly magnanimous about it in view of the stand which John Harvard took on the proposition. The Dartmouth sized up the situation:

"This is, admittedly, nothing but sheer exploitation of an amateur sport, and as such sets an ugly precedent. We recognize this. However, the urgency of the call throws the whole situation into an entirely different light. It is not a question of the ethics of amateur athletics; it is a question of the ethics of twiddling our thumbs in the face of a calamity when we can easily help alleviate the situation."

"... It is regrettable that Harvard will not appear on the program, but such is the purse-lipped will of the administration." "It's an inspired plan. It ought to click. And if it does fall short of the mark, the colleges of the nation will at least have cleared themselves of the stigma of lolling in a luxurious apathy while the rest of the country shivered outside the doors."