IN THE HISTORY of any institution of learning which has continued over a period of years there is bound to be a long and honored record of students who have completed their life work and finished their services to mankind while within the walls of that institution. There is no need to philosophise beyond this fact. What a man might have been and what he might have done are speculations. There is nothing that can be said of certainty in this direction.
The death of Robert Henry Michelet of the senior class, when the shocking intensity of grief has passed, is an example of what influence one man has in a group so large as a college group, and it is really an extraordinary thing that almost every one in Hanover felt that he had personal acquaintance with Michelet. That influence seems to have extended over the whole period of preparatory school life where the "high towering pillars" in the Pennsylvania valleys and hills looked down upon the friendly group of boys that parted so joyously for entrance into college life, through nearly four years of Dartmouth where his decent living and his comfortable reticence and his straightforward way of doing things left a powerful mark upon the personalities of his friends and directed much college thought into high standards of thinking. One cannot conceive of such a career as incomplete. It was wholly and absolutely effective. It is seldom given to a young man to carry such influence among his mates. And on the side of the College which goes on from year to year richer by all the contributions which such men make the benefit is enormous.
To the ever living spirit of Bob Michelet and to the other men who have completed their service to mankind within the walls of the College, this undergraduate number of the ALUMNI MAGAZINE is dedicated.