Editorial Comment

FOOTBALL'S FUTURE

THE FOOTBALL prospect of a series of games with Princeton is a most inviting one. At this writing there is authority only for the statement that such a series is definitely being negotiated. Just when and where the first game will be played and the settling of schedules by the respective athletic councils are among the decisions yet to be made. It is significant, however, that the Princeton-Dartmouth movement, or trend, has so far progressed that resumption of football relations in the near future seems entirely possible. Question may well be raised at this point as to where leads the road that Dartmouth's gridiron forces are now engaged in following.

Certainly the days are past when we can look to our green-clad team for a string of victories on successive Saturdays. Nor is any more to be expected of players in suits of crimson, blue, or red. Dartmouth can still hope, and will, but the strengthening of already pleasant relationships with our contemporaries in the East brings a schedule offering little promise of great success in the matter of victory except to that rare Hanover product—a championship team. What we hope may be the schedule of the future, toward which all indications surely point, will bring Dartmouth into football competition with our neighbors now being played in hockey, basketball, baseball, track, and other sports. It is now becoming plainly written, for all to see, that the position of football in the College is being defined gradually just as the development of other and less spectacular sports has been fostered. Perhaps Dartmouth's present, and future, hard schedulesone stiff game after another—are bringing us to understand what players and coaches have known all along: that they are the participants and directors of one sport in the year's program of many, that a series of major opponents are to be met, that they are playing the game primarily for the fun of it, that they will win if their best is good enough, that defeat will not mean the end of all sweetness and light in the world.

Alumni are interested in the development of the Dartmouth undergraduate, either as a single person or as a group. We are proud of their musical, literary, dramatic, athletic, scholastic accomplishments. We are pleased to behold in Hanover the farsighted, wise guidance given to the encouragement of these talents through the provision of ever-better physical facilities and a large and able corps of teachers. We ask of these teachers and coaches that they give to the College high character and sane attitudes on a basis of knowledge of subject. And we feel confident that all councils, whether administrative or extra-curricular, see eye to eye with the alumni in making sure that the present Dartmouth student generation is being moulded by men with such qualifications.

An already long story would only become longer if the point were further labored. Let it conclude with a cordial welcome to the Tiger at any Indian powwow, and a round of applause for those who are guiding the football canoe so sanely and so well.

TRAGEDY OF EMPTINESS

THREE TIMES has death struck at the very heart of the College during the past few weeks. Professor William Patten, E. K. Hall, and Professor Russell D. Kilborne have passed from the Dartmouth scene, each leaving vacant the center of his circle of family, friends, students, and distinguished accomplishment. We all suffer in the loss of these men. No matter how successfully the gaps may be bridged, the College, though richer for their lives, is impoverished by their untimely passing.

In a physical sense the circle of Dartmouth activity and influence encompasses the world. From the campus at Hanover, the heart and center of this sphere, there radiate many small circles, each one developing around an individual, each one growing and enlarging as the career of its central figure broadens. Regarded from a particularly Dartmouth point of view there is most certainly such a circle for every Dartmouth man. Because of their more intimate contacts with the College in the way of teaching or official alumni relationship the sphere of influence of some men grows to such proportions that to have it suddenly dissolved creates a tragedy of emptiness, a personal sadness, that can only be experienced when men whose lives have been given to self-sacrificing work are lost. Institutions exist, prosper, and progress through the efforts of such men. Dartmouth is fortunate in having its full share.

Dr. Patten and Russell Kilborne: Dartmouth Teachers; Ed Hall: Devoted Dartmouth Alumnus —all worked toward a common purpose, the enrichment of life. Their circles were large in scope and distinguished for variety of achievement. Memory of them will live long, as long as men recognize high ideals and reward fullness of heart.

EDUCATION BY EAR AND EYE

IT HAPPENED at some time in the Sixteenth Century, if memory holds the date correctly, that a certain gentleman in the University of Strassbourg invented a system whereby university students could sum up the work of the year or term by thumbing over a series of cards, upon each card being written one single subject taken up during the course of the term. This invention of the "cram" system was everywhere hailed with excitement, in some quarters praised, in others condemned. The inventor found himself summoned to appear before the university court, which finally, if tradition tells the truth, discharged him with honor and emoluments for forwarding the work of the spread of erudition. A Rabelesian hero thereupon, in the spirit of the times, acquires an education by playing cards, and at the same time amuses himself, thus accomplishing two objects. In our day the coming of the movies and talkies to the classroom has already stirred up some comment, mostly favorable, and will probably stir up more, following the announcement from the University of Chicago that much of the material to be presented in one special course will be presented largely through the medium of movie and talkie.

Those who ever seek to find incongruities in American college life will seize upon this pretext, a la Flexner, to enlarge upon the evils of the machine age and upon American education in general. On the other hand with the huge increase in the number of men annually seeking a higher education and the change in conditions governing their cultural desires, the methods of handling such large groups must be constantly changing in order to meet the demands of the time. The most brilliant teacher in the world on one end of a log, and two hundred and fifty students grouped about the other end might all find the older method a bit antique when under ideal conditions there would be but one student and one teacher, as the story goes about Mark Hopkins. One teacher could not hold two hundred and fifty students interested all the time or even for three hours each week, for some would be bound to be bored, and others weary, and others at a loss for his meaning. Therefore the machine method comes to hand and probably is welcomed.

Of course the talking motion picture could never be used in some courses; it could never supply a background of culture and emotion and feeling; it might however help to emphasize facts and it might suggest ideas. The motion picture is of course already part of the method in the teaching of certain sciences; to rely wholly upon such a machine is carrying the affair to a point where few would care to comment on the success or failure of such proceeding. Its ideal use seems to be supplementary, to give students variety from usual classes, lectures or conferences, but in cultural courses in particular the personality of the instructor will always carry great weight. At any rate the experiment at Chicago will be watched with much interest everywhere.

A COURSE IN ATHLETIC THEORY

AMONG THE demands put upon young teachers who go out to dispense learning in preparatory schools is a quite insistent one that they shall know something about student life and health and if possible about athletics and the application of athletic principles to whole groups of students. This demand was met in the past by a rather desultory method of sending trained athletes to teach in schools where specific demands were made for men of that type. The proficient college athlete, it was hoped, would be able to train students in various lines of athletic endeavor and probably take charge of certain teams as an actual coach. But with the coming of group instruction in physical training, with intra-murals in vogue even in preparatory schools and with programs of "athletics for all" almost everywhere, the young man or woman who goes into teaching with a somewhat scientific training in these subjects is much better prepared to find a market for his wares than is the person who has omitted such work from his schedule.

Therefore there was introduced an informal course last year in the department of Physical Education at Dartmouth, in cooperation with the department of Education, whereby men training in teacher courses could study the general effects of games and sports upon students, and also learn to conduct mass games and sports by study and actual participation. As a preliminary and experimental measure, no college credit was to be offered for students who completed such a course. The information gained therein was to be of supplementary value to other courses in Education and attendance at such meetings was voluntary. No effort was to be made to train coaches. No attempt was made to induce the candidates for teaching positions to specialize. A field of three or four sports, together with games applicable to large groups was mapped out and lectures supplemented by actual field practice and demonstration began. The results of this informal course have not yet, of course, been made apparent. It will be for those who go into teaching and work in the secondary schools to give the final word on such instruction. But if the work continues to increase and is carried on in such a serious fashion there will come a time when it will of necessity become part of the regular program of the departments concerned.

DEPRESSION COLLEGE

AN EXPERIMENT well worth the trying is the socalled Depression College of Port Royal, Virginia, which had its origin in the brain of a Dartmouth man, Dr. A. C. C. Hill Jr. of the class of 1925 who has associated with himself in the work two Dartmouth men, in addition to those from other colleges. The idea, that of furnishing the completion of a college course for students who had already begun academic work but had been compelled to abandon their studies for lack of funds, seemed a necessary remedy for the prevailing money shortage. It applied as well to such professors and teachers who for one reason or another found themselves out of employment, but might earn room and board at the Depression institution until better times appeared.

Other Dartmouth men associated with Dr. Hill are Professor H. B. Stanton of the class of 1906, a teacher with experience at Rutgers, Colby, New Hampshire, and the Women's College of North Carolina, and Dr. Lloyd Flewelling of the class of 1921, also with teaching experience. Newspaper accounts have perhaps familiarized the MAGAZINE'S readers with the details of the plan, which being as yet in an experimental stage has not resulted in much more than preliminaries.

Various colleges in America have been known at various times as the "Poor Man's College." Both Dartmouth and Harvard have at one time or another carried this sobriquet. But this title is now borne without dispute by the college in Port Royal and many a student in an age of luxury might look toward it with some actual longing for the vigorous and hardy life which is found there. Many a Dartmouth man now living, has in college days drawn water in the cold of winter from a pump on the campus or behind old Dartmouth Hall. Many a Dartmouth man has broken the ice in his pitcher in order to get the water heated for the weekly shave. It was only in comparatively recent times that the hatchet-marred floors of the old buildings were removed, for in days not so long gone by students kept their own fires and knew nothing of steam heat, electricity, or janitor service. Being a wilderness college, Dartmouth was perhaps the last college in America to succumb to modern comfort and convenience, yet there are few alumni who would swap their early experiences for those of a later day.

Depression College may be able to furnish some of these crudities which possess, on the whole, a certain air of romance. Clothing may be decidedly informal and comfortable. Washing and laundry can be reduced to the minimum as in the flannel shirt days here. Athletics will have that freedom from training and coaching which marked athletics in their beginnings in American colleges. Corn-cob pipes may reappear on the campus. And with less money for automobiles and peerades and movies and radios and all the paraphernalia of modern life it may be possible to get back to a less sophisticated and possibly a more enthusiastic campus spirit. Long Live the Depression College, say we.