Editorial Comment

For opinions which appear in these columns the Editors alone are responsible

A COMMON LOSS

WHEN the wilderness surrounding Hanover still pressed close in upon the small group of Wheelock's settlers and the campus clearing, that prime requisite of every frontier village was recognized and a church was built. The early chapel soon gave way to a larger and more pretentious building erected through the subscription of five thousand dollars by the community, urged to this munificence by President John Wheelock. Historic documents tell us that the White Church was paid for partly in cash and partly in beef, pork, grain, lumber, and labor at fixed prices. Labor was estimated at fifty-eight cents a day. The painstaking construction of the new and spacious house of worship was begun in 1794 and not completed until near the end of the year 1795.

For one hundred and thirty-six years those hardy beams and sturdy walls withstood the onslaughts of North Country winters and sheltered successive congregations of students, faculty families, and townsfolk. The fire on May 13 demolished the College's most historic building. No other Hanover structure used for public purpose and antedating 1800 in its construction now stands.

The more recent graduates of the College are, perhaps, not aware that for more than a century the White Church was used as the general meeting place for undergraduates. A long, unbroken succession of Commencements were held there. With diplomas in hand and cap tassels on the left some six thousand seniors have marched down its aisles in the final rite of their undergraduate days. A long list of men eminent and distinguished in their walk in life have spoken from its historic pulpit. Among many others, Daniel Webster, Rufus Choate, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Levi Woodbury, Emerson, Hillard, and Edward Everett Hale addressed Commencement gatherings in the old building.

A familiar landmark is gone. The present-day demands of its congregation and the prospect of its greater usefulness to the College portended some changes in the White Church and its location had there been no fire. But its complete and spectacular destruction leaves the community aghast. In death the old church was dignified and stern. Streams of water played futilely upon its ancient timbers aflame with fire which sent clouds of sparks high toward the sky and beat back the throng of onlookers below. Its belfry and its whole frame burned almost to a crisp before a single beam gave way. Defying all laws of God and man two uprights running from the ground to the top of the steeple clung solidly to the position they had held since 1795. The roof fell in, the walls toppled over, but those two flaming timbers stood as though rooted to the spot. At last they swayed perilously, and disregarding the ruin about them, slowly and majestically curved toward the ground.

Dartmouth alumni will miss the church. It will be greatly missed by those most active in its affairs. But it is a common loss, suffered by all who held the traditions and history of the College dear.

GEORGE FISHER BAKER

THE death, at the ripe age of 91, of George Fisher Baker, the eminent banker of New York City, removes from earthly activity a man who had enrolled himself among the most conspicuous benefactors of Dartmouth College—and he did so in ways calculated to make his influence both supremely beneficial and securely permanent. The Baker Library is by no means his only monument, but it is among the most notable which he left behind him and it is the one for which Dartmouth men in an especial manner will be forever grateful. Not only the building itself, but the endowment of its unkeep as well, constitute that memorial to a life which was as useful as it was long, and as successful as it was honorable. Mr. Baker's other gifts—notably that creating the Harvard Business School and several of the first magnitude to Cornell—bespoke a lively interest in the advancement of American education and betokened an appreciation of the usefulness of the American college on the part of a man who, in his own youth, had been denied the advantages of a collegiate training. It is not merely that Mr. Baker gave millions in money; even more important has been the way in which he gave, and the wisdom which informed his giving when it came to the choice of the channels to be taken by his benefactions.

That Dartmouth was deemed worthy to command his generous cooperation and also to retain it may well be held a reason for Dartmouth pride. Certainly the service which he rendered the College in enabling its construction of the present library must be set among the greatest ever accorded us. It is particularly gratifying to know that Mr. Baker lived to see the fruition of so many of his noblest gifts. He attained years awarded to few—and few have ever made a fuller use of their opportunities of service.

Mr. Baker's first visit to Hanover was in 1859 when he walked from his home in Troy, N. Y., to see Fisher Ames Baker, his uncle, graduate from Dartmouth. A long span of years separated this early visit from the next one. In 1927 he came back to take a central position in the Commencement of that year and to receive the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws. Construction on the Baker Library was then in progress and it was not until the summer of the following year that Mr. Baker saw the beautiful memorial to his beloved uncle, of whom he spoke with great affection. Arriving at the Norwich and Hanover station in a private car he was driven to the library and with the aid of a wheel chair was guided through the building and shown the spacious rooms and study halls which his generosity had made possible.

No other trip to Dartmouth was anticipated but last fall he sent word that he wished to see the library again. Almost every foot of the building was again gone over. Mr. Baker was genuinely proud of what he had done for Dartmouth. An occasional tear was brusquely brushed aside as he looked about eagerly, taking in every detail, and absorbing every word spoken in description of the building and the College. His last glimpse of Dartmouth was from the arcade between Baker and Sanborn, with the library at his back and facing him the historic campus filled with boys at the changing of classes. His tribute to the College was expressed in his words spoken there: "Dartmouth is a good ""college. Everybody speaks well of Dartmouth."

COMMENCEMENT

THE one hundred and sixty-second year of the College comes to a close this month when Commencement holds sway June 12-16. It is the one "homecoming" of the year. Five-year reunions will hold the center of the stage for alumni and the large graduating class will be the object of all attention for the hundreds of parents and friends of the seniors.

The program remains much the same as in former years. The success of the Alumni Luncheon, or known likewise as the Commencement Luncheon, last year demands that this feature of the Commencement season again be held Monday noon, rather than Tuesday following the Webster Hall exercises. An interesting program and a large, enthusiastic attendance combined last year to make the occasion a most impressive one. No senior or returning alumnus will want to miss the Luncheon given by the trustees in their honor Monday noon, June 15.

President and Mrs. Hopkins will hold their informal reception in the evening of Sunday, June 14, instead of during the afternoon of that day. The Baccalaureate exercises in the morning and motor trips and class outings in the afternoon will be climaxed with this out-door reception in the evening to members of the graduating class, alumni, the faculty, and guests. Dick's House, Carpenter Art Building, and Sanborn English House will again be open to visitors during stated hours of each day of the week-end. Concerts by the Dartmouth Band, the Musical Clubs, an organ recital, a performance of "Berkeley Square" by the Players, the Commencement Ball Monday evening, a baseball game, as well as the scheduled exercises of the senior class and class reunion events will make a busy program for all visitors.

The attention of all those who are planning to use rail transportation in returning to Hanover for Commencement is called to the certificate plan of buying railroad tickets which is described in detail in another section of the MAGAZINE. The point should be stressed here, however, that 150 participants in the plan are necessary if it is to become operative. Alumni returning from nearer as well as more distant points will therefore assist greatly by requesting a "Dartmouth College Commencement Certificate" from their ticket seller when tickets for the going trip are purchased.

DARTMOUTH IN CALIFORNIA

AWAY back in 1881 an alumni association was formed by the Dartmouth men resident in Northern California—a state famous for its climate and for the fact that it is so longitudinally extensive as to warrant northern and southern dioceses, educationally and otherwise. This year the Northern California alumni of Dartmouth observed the 50th anniversary of their organization by giving a dinner, at which the attendance of Dartmouth men constituted a record even in that state where records are One of the principal items of output. Not the least gratifying of many pleasant things about that dinner was the presence of a charter member—a man who, then 10 years out of College, participated in the initial organization of 1881—still hale and hearty it would seem, since he is credited with having made the "best record for regular attendance at the weekly luncheons" of the Association during 1930. This is Charles Herbert Ham, of the class of '71, and most appropriately Honorary President of the alumni in that vicinity.

It all goes to show how real has become the aspiration of Dartmouth to be a truly national institution. It is a big college and there are many to love it; but the spirit is the same as when Daniel Webster drew tears from the Supreme court by his reference to its littleness and to the devotion of its few offspring. None, it is safe to say, are more genuinely loyal or more intelligently concerned to forward the interests of the College than these enthusiastic sons living in and around San Francisco. We are outgrowing the provincial days when one thought of alumni as flocking together in considerable numbers only in such effete centers as Boston and New York. The recurrent Pow-Wow celebrations in Chicago and the demonstration of a no less fervent enthusiasm within sight and hail of the Golden Gate bear testimony to the fact that ours is no pent-up Utica. Congratulations, then, to the alumni of the Pacific Slope. If they are proud of the College, the College is no less proud of them and no less grateful to them.

YALE AND THE CLASSICS

THOSE of us who retain an abiding faith in the ancient classics as the food most convenient for the souls of such as would be rated men and women of real cultivation can hardly avoid a pang of regret on reading that Yale has lately abolished the requirement even of Latin as a prerequisite for admission, and similarly has decreed that one may become a Bachelor of Arts who has no acquaintance whatever with either Latin or Greek. It, may be, and doubtless is, unprofitable to quarrel with an inexorable trend of collegiate education; but the regret is none the less real among those who feel that in this there is a surrender of something intrinsically valuable, and who incline to play the part sometimes described as that of a laudator temporis acti.

One must remember that Yale by no means goes the length of saying that an A.B. may not qualify by presenting Greek and Latin among his subjects. One may still enter as a freshman and emerge as a senior with as many points to his credit in these classic fields as his grandsire won, and very possibly he will be quite as efficient for the battle of living as his classmate to whom all ancient tongues are as a sealed book. The more difficult question is whether the latter, though as well equipped to be a citizen of his age, can claim to be as well provided with the apparatus for enjoying his success when he has won it. So accomplished a critic as Mr. John Jay Chapman somewhere remarks that the best food for the soul of a man is the Bible and the Greek classics. We are a part of all that we have met, and not least of all are we indebted to the men of old time to whom Latin and Greek were familiar speech. However, our forebears probably felt a similar pang when they found the colleges turning away from Hebrew as a part of the cultured gentleman's equipment. Greek fell by the wayside long ago, as a hard and fast requirement for admission into what Dr. Eliot used to call the fellowship of educated men. One recalls the cynical remark of a colleague in the English Department, on being introduced to the head of the Depart- ment of Greek, that he "supposed a professor of Greek was indispensable to the training of other professors of Greek." Like most wise-cracks, this is more plausible than accurate.

In view of our own College's propensity to follow something like the same lines, and the undoubted tendency of the times everywhere to rate Latin as far from indispensable in the production of a cultivated society, it is by no means the appropriate function of the present writer to cast the first stone at such prominent institutions of learning as boldly face the situation and go the whole figure, without mincing matters, or gingerly laying the whole subject on the table for someone with more courage and more candor to take up at some future day. Yale has done what is probably inevitable everywhere, and what many including Dartmouth, have done already without shame. It is not necessarily wise, or necessarily right; but neither is it clearly and demonstrably unwise and wrong. Time is likely to decide. In the meantime, however, those to whom a baccalaureate degree connoted at least a bowing acquaintance with the classics of Greece and Rome will feel that there hath passed away a glory from the earth.

CHANGE IN THE'MAGAZINE

BEGINNING with the next year which will be Volume XXIV for the MAGAZINE the first issue will be published in October instead of November 1, as in previous years. This change which has been anticipated throughout the year is being made at the request of some number of subscribers who feel that the first issue of the MAGAZINE in any year should be dated more closely to the opening of the college year. It is a logical argument that an October issue could well carry articles and news items of greater interest and value than could an issue, the first one of the year, published one month later.

A corresponding change is being made in the final issue of the year. This has customarily come in August and its greatest interest has undoubtedly been the inclusion of reports on reunions and news stories having do with the general Commencement program. The issue has reached subscribers at a time when vacations have largely destroyed the accurateness of the Alumni Records' address lists. To avoid this difficulty and to furnish alumni with reunion and Commencement news as early as possible it is planned to publish a special supplement to the MAGAZINE directly after the Commencement season. This will go to all subscribers. It will, in effect, be the final issue of the year since resubscriptions and new subscriptions will begin with the October issue next fall.

This change of policy is being made by the editors for the purpose of serving the best interests of the alumni which it is felt will be accomplished to a greater degree under the new arrangement.