Gradus Ad Parnassum
ALL COLLEGES are not the same nor do they have the same objectives. It is a fortunate situation in higher education that there exists a great variety of purpose among its institutions. A characteristic that has distinguished Dartmouth from all of the other colleges and universities for more than 15 years has been the effort to enroll a student body representative of every section of the country. This objective of widespread geographical distribution of its undergraduates has been largely achieved. Studies that have been made during the past decade show Dartmouth to be a truly national college, perhaps to a greater degree than is true of any other institution.
Since the time when the College decided to go far beyond its home precincts and traditional constituencies in the selection of entering classes there has been a considerable change in the figures for distribution of students. For example there are this year only 170 students enrolled (in all four classes) from New Hampshire; there are 40 from Vermont; and 27 from Maine. From the three states of the Pacific Coast there are 55 enrolled this year, 40 coming from California. The central or middlewestern states of Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Minnesota are contributing 381 students, or 16% of the whole.
These figures, compared to those of a generation ago, show achievement of the objective of national distribution to an amazing degree.
SOME LOCALITIES are stating that Dartmouth is "taking away" some of their young and highly useful citizens. The inference is (and even the bald assertion is made) that "their boys" are going east to college, if not against their wills and better judgment, then under circumstances of pressure. Will Dartmouth, and other eastern colleges, be hailed before the courts for "stealing" a youth from some community?description: "weight 147 lbs., good student, of poor but industrious family, plays the piccolo." No. There will be no complaint. But when a local youth of 185 lbs. who is endowed with a natural desire and ability to run with a ball, and pass and kick it, makes the same decision there are very thinly veiled statements (or with no veils at all) that the local institutions are being "robbed." One of the prospective skilled workers who is important to a game that is worth a million dollars a year to the State is being lured away.
Dartmouth welcomes every year to its historic campus and classrooms boys from every part of the United States. President Hopkins has spoken to the alumni of the importance in; education of "the impact of youthful mind on youthful mind." How better to achieve the high purposes of the College than to give fully of its resources and opportunities to the youth of the whole country, to those who want its education and who are able to qualify for it? The hope and aim is that those boys will grow to manhood under the stimulating influences of the environment of a college of liberal arts, among college mates who are carefully selected for admission from every part of the country, and that they will return to their home; communities prepared and capable for useful citizenship.
AN EVENT OF the past month was the k dinner given by the, Athletic Council the evening of the Amherst game for the two teams and for a number of officers of both colleges. Dean-Emeritus Craven Laycock '96 was toastmaster; President King and President Hopkins were to be the only speakers but the former headmaster of Andover, Dr. Stearns, an Amherst man, showed up and was pressed into service to reminisce about the good old days when Amherst, Williams, and Dartmouth were the "Little Three" and when all games were played on the campus. He recalled, among several competitive experiences in Hanover, the time he was stoned out of town by the local rabble!
The banquet was a sincere welcome to an old friend, a friend whose place at the Dartmouth table should always be ready. It was an informal but serious recognition of the cordial relationships that exist on the athletic fields of those colleges whose teams represent institutions having the same background and ideals of liberal education. President Hopkins stated that these colleges should be opponents in intercollegiate sport "by all that is good and right."
THE DEATH by assassination of Ted Marriner '14, Consul General in Syria, is a sad blow. He was a brilliant member of the consular service, perhaps the most promising of the younger alumni of the College in the foreign service. Secretary Hull broke with precedent in stating the extent of the loss to the government: "His career had been an exceptionally distinguished and notable one," he said.
We recall vividly an office duty that led to Ted Marriner's office in Washington. In 1930 the Trustees commissioned Tiffany's to duplicate the ancient silver punchbowl that was brought by Governor Wentworth to the first Commencement in 1771. The replica was a gift for Mr. Tuck. Signatures of members of the Board at that time were engraved on the bowl as well as a message to the greatest benefactor of the College. Mr. Marriner had agreed to take the gift to Mr. Tuck in his personal luggage, standing ready in this instance as in all others to do whatever he could for the College.
His distinction, mounting through the years, was recognized by the French government when the citation of Commander of the Legion of Honor was recently given him. For more than ten years he had moved from one difficult post to another in Western Europe. More recently Mr. Marriner had held the important position in Syria and it was known that he was to be advanced to even more vital places in the East.
THE NOTABLE CAREER of Mr. Marriner in government service will be missed by those among the alumni who may not have known him but who regret that graduates of the College are not more prominent in governmental affairs, in public life and also in the diplomatic and consular services. There was a period of several decades in the last century when Dartmouth was regarded as a maker of great statesmen, diplomats, and soldiers. Alumni held high positions in the courts of the land; the Congress was studded with some of the brilliant lights of history who had taken the long way into the New Hampshire wilderness for their education; governors of Colonial States and of newly formed territories in the Middle West were in many cases Dartmouth men.
There is a great tradition to be built upon for those who are directing the destiny of the current movement known as "Dartmouth in Politics." The inception and progress of the plan is described in these pages this month by Professor Tobin who is working with Professor Richardson in the department of Political Science to encourage and help alumni who profess an interest in a career in public life. In this day of specialization it is an altogether too rare thing for the very able man who is a first rate doctor or lawyer or business man to become, at any time during his life, a power in the politics of his home community or state or the nation. The objective of the present movement is to see to it that alumni who are interested in better government are given the chance to prove their interest and seriousness of intent.
We have mentioned the great tradition, the record of the greatest eminence, that Dartmouth has had in the public life of the country. Might it not be stimulating to this generation to learn much more than is known by most of us, of the alumni who have made American history? Perhaps this is something that "Dartmouth in Politics" might undertake and make available to the alumni through these pages or in some other way.
AFTER READING Van Wyck Brooks' Flowering of Neiu England your editor is tempted to secure the help of a gifted pen in preparing an article on TheFlowering of Dartmouth in New England. For Mr. Brooks, or rather for the purposes of his literary history of the great awakening in American letters, the sun rises and sets in or near Cambridge, Massachusetts. This is not the place to quarrel with his opus, nor is it our desire to do so for it is an excellent and valuable and very readable work. But several of the colleges not located near the Charles River might inquire with some solicitude whether or not their respective processes of education and environments may have had some slight effect on the qualities of mind and personalities of the principal characters of the book.
We will not attempt the prosecution for all New England colleges. But speaking for ourselves (and there is a good case for several of the others) George Ticknor, father of the study of romance languages in this country, was of the class of 1807; Daniel Webster, the pride and glory of his age, of the class of 1801; Rufus Choate, a scarcely less brilliant lawyer and statesman than Mr. Webster, of the class of 1819; John Ledyard, first of the world travelers and adventurers, of the class of 1775.
The connections of these men with Dartmouth is pointed out for those of our readers who are readers and admirers of Mr. Brooks' book and who may be interested in learning where some of his heroes went to college.
BUT LET US not take ourselves to seriously on this matter of claiming credit for the lives of the great among our fellow alumni. It was the late Edwin Webster Sanborn '78 who, as President Hopkins likes to tell, once commented (at the Webster Centennial in 1901) upon the inordinate amount of self-praise freely bestowed by Dartmouth men upon their college for the development of his great-uncle Daniel Webster into the man he was. Mr. Sanborn dryly remarked that there must have been some other influence at work somewhere in the situation because Dartmouth had existed for over 100 years without producing another Webster.
THE ORATION OF Dr. Alexis Carrel in Webster Hall last month is stimulating reading and we are happy to publish it in full in this number of the ALUMNI MAGAZINE. It is evident that Dr. Carrel made every attempt to provide the historic occasion of the celebration of the 150 th anniversary of Phi Beta Kappa in the College with an address of challenging content. That he was successful was attested to by all who heard him. Readers of his book Man the Unknown will find in his Dartmouth address a summary of some of the most important points that he made in that admirable analysis of the great social and physical problems of man, and likewise a restatement of the high objectives toward which he believes man must move for their solution.
One is impressed by the truth of his keen observations on the ills of society. Dr. Carrel writes in a stimulating, epigrammatic Style. His sentences, terse, authoritative, factual, are provocative. "Medicine has notdecreased human suffering as much as itmas hoped. Suffering is brought to man,not only by bacteria and viruses, but alsoby more subtle agents. Nervous fragility,intellectual weakness, moral corruption,insanity, are more dangerous for thefuture of civilization than yellow fever,typhus, and cancer." .... "Man alone isaccountable for his troubles. He has misused technology and built a world thatdoes not fit him." .... "We modifiedour environment and ourselves at random,according to our inventions, illusions, andappetites, without any respect for thelaws of our mind and body. But naturallaws are never transgressed with impunity." .... "Modern society has practically failed. The only remedy is to remake man, not according to our fancy,but to the laws of his nature, and to givehim such an invironment as is appropriateto his specific constitution. This is the taskthat has been forced upon us."
His is a fervor approaching the evangelistic in stating the great and pressing need for the establishment of "institutes of psychobiology" and an "institute for the construction of the civilized man." Science and medicine have gone far in probing into the unknown. Such notable centers as the Pasteur and Rockefeller Institutes have shown what may be done, he said, but the task of coordinating all scientific knowledge of man remains ahead.
At best the rate of human progress is slow. Critics of Dr. Carrel's dreams for a world populated by "supersouls" will argue that the factors of personality, human nature, environment, and spiritual factors cannot be analyzed and are not subject to large scale tests in cubicled laboratories, or to improvement as a result of efforts of science. But let us remember that there is progress, no matter how slowly it may appear to move across the line of our vision and understanding. Will the great builders for the future, of whom Dr. Carrel is surely one, ever see their plans proven right? In too many cases have they later become our immortals to state that they are wholly wrong and that the doubters of our generation are wholly right.
THERE HAVE BEEN two notable instances in the recent past where committees have gone to work on vexing problems and their eventual reports have shaped administrative policy in major degree. The Social Survey Committee attacked the fraternity and social problem nearly three years ago and after intensive study and discussion lasting for more than a year and a half its report did more to clarify the situation and point to logical and helpful policy than almost a century of previous verbiage had accomplished. Of not so ancient heritage but of vital importance was the problem of student health tackled by another group, compounded of undergraduates, faculty, and officers- of administration. Here again the result of the committee procedure proved extremely helpful and the direct result was the establishment of the blanket Health Service last year.
Undergraduate publications could not be said, in our opinion, to represent a critical problem. They are, however, a vexing problem—perhaps as troublesome to the students engaged in working for them as they are to the College and all of its diverse constituents. No year has passed without suggestions being submitted by individuals or groups for the improvement of the situation in one way or another, and in one or another of the student publications. The whole set up deserves study. It is very probable that recommendations to the President will come out of the committee's objective study and discussions that will clear the way for making some real improvements in these student organizations that bear the name of the College. It is gratifying to see the committee appointed and at work and it is reassuring in regard to the objectives of the study to note the excellent qualifications for the task at hand of every member of the group.
AMONG THE pleasant features of the im pressive and colorful events in the celebration of Phi Beta Kappa's 150 th anniversary last month was the tribute paid to Harold G. Rugg '06, long time secretary of the society. The testimonial to Mr. Rugg's 27 years of service in the position was given by Prof. E. Bradley Watson '02 in the course of his address as president of the Dartmouth chapter. It was truly stated that the functioning of the society through recent years and its observance of important anniversaries, including the sesquicentennial of last month, have been in large part due to the effective and devoted direction of its affairs by Mr. Rugg.
One might sing, a la Gilbert & Sullivan, of the "peripatetic Harold Rugg." He teaches a course in the art department on book-making; he is a botanist of no mean standing and owns and operates a rock garden on a house lot on the West Leb road that he bought for the purpose (of having a rock garden); he travels hither and thither in good botanical regions at every opportunity, his latest exploit having been this summer a jaunt with Dr. Fred Lord '9B to Cape Breton, around the Cabot Trail, with the Gaspe trip thrown in for good measure; he is a mountainclimber; he was for years the godfather of the Arts and is still the first resource of undergraduates with esthetic interests who look for counsel and understanding; he is the leading antiquarian of the Hanover community, being regarded as the first authority on Dartmouthiana and also more general items of historical interest; he served as secretary of his class of 1906 from 1909 to 1920; he has been connected with the library since 1906 and assistant librarian since 1919; and, here the editors of this magazine are deeply appreciative, he has been literary editor of the ALUMNI MAGAZINE for 23 years.
There is no evidence of "was" or "has been" in his career. The past tense would be out of place. Mr. Rugg acquires new interests and retains the old ones. There should be some satisfaction to him (no inconsiderable reward) in knowing that his friends and the groups that he serves keenly desire to have him understand how deep is their appreciation and gratitude for the career that he is devoting so modestly and effectively to the College and many of its allied interests.
IF THERE ARE any among the brethren of the alumni who still fall for the story of hard luck, of connection with Dartmouth, and of the need for a small loan, they should be examined for sanity. The trouble is there are plenty of alumni who are sucked in by stories of this kind and there will be more in the future. Imposters are at work again this fall. When a plausible story is told by a no-matter-how plausible gent, ask him to call back in an hour and meanwhile check up with your own class records, or with an Alumni Register, or with your local alumni association secretary, or phone to the offices in Hanover. The chances are he won't show up because 999 times out of a 1000 he's a hoax, trying to get a little cash under false pretenses.
A NEW YORK photographer, Charles J. Carbonaro, is responsible for the picture on the cover this month. It was taken on the shore of Smart's or Reservoir, Pond which is located about 15 miles from Hanover up in the hills beyond Lyme Center. There is a snug Outing Club cabin on the summit of nearby Smart's Mt., another D. O. C. cabin (the gift of John H. Hinman 'OB and son Crawford '37) on the shore of the pond, and two miles away, on Cummings Pond, is the wilderness camp of the Bait and Bullet club.
HAROLD G. RUGG 'O6 Elected secretary of the Dartmouth chapterof Phi Beta Kappa in 1910, he has servedcontinuously for 27 years in this position.He is assistant librarian of the College.
