WHAT OF THE FORTY?

A SURVEY of the experiences of the Alumni Fund re„ veals that every year about 60 per cent of the eligible contributors to the Fund respond with gifts of varying magnitude and that about 40 per cent do not. The figures vary somewhat from year to year, and the percentage of participation is always creditably high as such things go—far more so than in the case of any other similar fund in other colleges. Still one has a lurking wonder as to the reason animating the remaining 40 per cent, making due allowance for the undoubted fact that a considerable proportion thereof must be so circumstanced as to make contribution impossible as a matter of financial prudence. The number of whom that is true must be far from the total of 40 per cent of the living Dartmouth men, however, and the natural question raised is whether those who could participate, but do not, take that course because of indifference, or disaffection? Presumably of such there are a few—but surely there cannot be many. There remains a considerable fraction, the ability and the disposition of which are favorable, but a fraction none the less absent from the contributing roll. Is it because of a failure to appreciate the great importance of the Fund, or because of a feeling that it will probably be raised anyhow without one's personal participation, or because of unwillingness to contribute a small sum when others give more imposing amounts?

In current hard conditions, which have caused the quota to be missed in the past two years, it seems desirable to awaken thought of the importance of a nearly complete participation in the minds of the missing 40 per cent. There will always be a percentage of nonparticipants, of course, but it should be possible to reduce it well below the average of recent years. This year in an especial manner is it desirable to count every available man. The expenses of the College cannot be greatly reduced, save by omitting expansions which would ordinarily be made and postponing salary increases which would have come in better years as a matter of course. The policy of the administration is to hold that ground we have won, recognizing that better days will come and that untimely recessions would be regretted. After all, the deficits due to this policy will be far smaller than those which were boldly incurred when Dartmouth, under Dr. Tucker, was just beginning to grow. But deficits there must be, and the great question is how far the Alumni Fund can be made to reduce the gap between what must be spent and what can be collected. In normal times the Fund does this completely. Last year it fell short, as it did the year before, though by an amazingly inconsiderable sum. How far can it be made to go this year?

No argument is intended for the man so circumstanced as to be actually unable to give anything at all, of course. What argument we offer is addressed to the possibly disaffected, who may be urged to review their attitude whith an eye to assessing its reasonableness, but more especially to such as have refrained from contributing because they could give so little that it seemed disproportionate. That simply isn't a valid reason. The vast majority of those who participate give small sums. It is so with every such fund in the world-Community Chests, church funds and others. The bulk of the money invariably comes from the big and exceptional gifts, such as few of us are in position to make. In our Fund, perhaps 50 per cent of the total money comes from the gifts of fewer than 10 per cent of all the contributors. One cannot do without themand also one cannot do without the smaller gifts, ranging from a dollar upward, and sometimes even less than a dollar.

One has the uneasy feeling that 40 per cent of noncontributors is too much—that it creates the mistaken impression that there are 40 per cent who either cannot give, or do not care Jenough to give what they could, while 60 per cent can and do. Is it too much to ask that noncontributors, to whose attention these lines may come, make a special effort to help reduce the percentage of absentees this spring to something like its irreducible minimum? That the irreducible minimum is as great as 40 per cent we simply cannot make ourselves believe.