Article

General Thayer's School

March 1935
Article
General Thayer's School
March 1935

How is THE sixty-three-year old Thayer School getting along?-pretty well we should say: Dean Garran reports placing all of his last year's class and expects to do as well this year. Few, if any, Thayer School men are out of a job.

But what is more significant than anything else is the type of employment. Over twenty per cent of the graduates occupy high executive positions. The reason for this wonderful record must be the fundamental policy of the Thayer foundation, namely to give a breadth and depth to knowledge. Unlike most engineering schools, emphasis is placed for the first three years on a broad liberal arts training, only forty-two out of ninety hours are assigned to preparatory engineering courses and many of these are prescribed for an A.B. degree.

As a result, Thayer School men acquire a general culture and social qualities instead of running the danger of becoming somewhat detached and de-humanized by a rigid technical training of four years' duration. Thanks to the foresight of the founder and the vision of its great administrator, Professor Fletcher, this school has recognized from the first the principle that the relationship of man to man is the great problem of the age.

Bobby Fletcher, a grand old man, still visits his office almost every day. He has kept a diary since the days of his childhood. He knows where every Thayer School man is located and how he is getting along. In a special library in Bissell Hall are all the textbooks he used in West Point. And also the technical books of General Thayer which Bobby picked out and retained for the School.

The School is completely housed in Bissell Hall and its equipment is good except for a more up-to-date and complete lab oratory. Scientific developments are so rapid that even a good equipment of a few years ago becomes obsolete. W. F. Kimball '28, the energetic instructor in Civil Engineering has undertaken to raise funds to supply this need. Drop into Bissell Hall when you are in town and you will be both entertained and enlightened for it is a good school with a fine history, based upon a principle of education now being recognized by our largest universities and technical schools.

Above all, pay your respects to Bobby Fletcher, one of the greatest teachers and educators ever to grace the walls of old Dartmouth.