DARTMOUTH'S LOYAL SONS

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

IT is nearly a century since Amos Tuck graduated with the class of 1835 from Dartmouth College, little dreaming that before a hundred years were sped he would be commemorated by a great and growing department of the then struggling College, in the form of a business school bearing his name and constituting a monument more enduring than bronze. It is exactly seventy years this June since his son, Edward Tuck of the class of 1862, left Dartmouth and entered on a business career which was destined to lead his footsteps far afield, but which never was to obscure his love for and loyalty to the College. Two generations in this instance cover almost a full century, and have left upon Dartmouth an impress such as is vouchsafed to very few.

Amos Tuck betook himself to Exeter and became a famous lawyer there. He married and in due course, in 1842, his son was born. Youth began its educational processes early in those days, and graduation at the age of 20 was perhaps more common then than now. Edward Tuck graduated before his father's thirtieth reunion; and it has been his fortune to live on to an age far exceeding that of his sire, for Amos Tuck passed from this life in 1879, having failed by a few months of the attainment of the traditional Scriptural span. For Mr. Tuck, into the 70 years since the class of 1862 departed from Hanover, has been crowded an unusual measure of worldly success, coupled with a zeal for service and an intelligence in the quest thereof all too seldom realized in the lifetime of successful men. Loyalty to family and College tradition have conspired to promote a benefaction, or rather a series of benefactions, which it is the purpose of this issue of the ALUMNI MAGAZINE to celebrate.

Amos Tuck, the father, prospered and became an active force in his community. He served for six years as a representative in Congress and for nine years as a trustee of the College. Meantime Edward Tuck went almost immediately to France where he served for two years as a vice consul before becoming a member of the financial house of Munroe & Company, which had offices both in New York and Paris. It was decreed by the fates that in Paris he should continue to reside, both in activity and in retirement, throughout a long career in which he has witnessed stirring events in peace and m war, in days of adversity and days of prosperity for the City of Light.

Within a few months there have been books and plays devoted to speculation as to what would have happened in our national history if Booth had missed when he fired upon President Lincoln—if Lincoln had lived and had been empowered by length of days to assail the problem of carrying out the complex business of reconstruction. The speculation does no harm and is interesting, although naturally inconclusive. That Lincoln would have fared better by far than did Andrew Johnson is more than probable; that he could have carried through his plans is more than uncertain. In similar vein there have often been speculations among Dartmouth men, especially those more intimately familiar with the inner workings of the College, as to what would have happened to us had there been no Edward Tuck to serve as Dartmouth's chief benefactor and most helpful son. That the College would have gone on is certain; that it could have attained its present magnitude and prestige without the timely assistance of Mr. Tuck is improbable to the last degree. The College which Wheelock founded, which Webster saved, which Tucker revived, and which Hopkins brought to its present estate could never have become what it is today without the steadfast backing which it has commanded from this generous son, uniting abundant means with unstinted readiness to bestow. Dartmouth has had many friends, many helpers, many notable benefactors—but Mr. .Tuck's name has led all the rest. The "quintessential \sine qua non" was someone with the materia] and spiritual elements in combination to give full effect to what Dr. Tucker had conceived as the edifice to rear on Wheelock's foundation. Dartmouth could not be the Dartmouth that we know without wise men to plan. "Where there is no vision, the people perish." But vision alone is not enough. Without men of heart, without men of faith in the validity of the dream, visions count for little. More than any other one man, Edward Tuck has made it possible that dreams have come true. It was his good fortune to be able to help, and to his everlasting credit that he has been willing.

It is pleasant to feel that, while still living, he has his monument and knows that his fame is secure; for we feel that the earthly forms of immortality attained by associating oneself with a college are the most enduring of all. It is the name of Amos Tuck that has been applied to the School of Business Administration created in his honor, but it is the name of Edward Tuck that, lacking material inscription on brick or stone, is graven deeply in our hearts and woven indelibly into the fabric that is Dartmouth.

That Dartmouth of today is the result of a happy union of vision with practical enthusiasm. How often have we come close to destruction, only to be saved because somehow, in God's providence, the right men have come to meet the crisis! The world knows well the story of that stressful period when unseemly rivalry sought to make two Dartmouths grow where one grew before and how nobly a son of the old College came to her support. There was drama in that situation, for the thing was not done in a corner. Far less does the world know of the long struggle that has brought Dartmouth from the lowly estate into which she had slipped in the closing days of the Nineteenth century to the gratifying prominence she has attained in the first three decades of the Twentieth. There is little of the dramatic in slow and steady growth. Yet President Tucker at the dawn of the century as surely met a crisis as did Daniel Webster when the century was young; and if success has attended Dartmouth even beyond his dream, the credit therefor is in large measure Edward Tuck's, of the class of 1862, whose Seventieth reunion this is.

Alas, how few are privileged to attend a reunion at that age! But how fortunate are we in this rare instance to be enabled to pay the full tribute of merited respect to one who is surely to be rated among the great builders of Dartmouth!