A Process of Change in the College
EDITOR OF "THE DARTMOUTH" SUGGESTS SHIFT IN THEDARTMOUTH SPIRIT TO A STRONGER BASE
IN THE early days when we were just learning to wear our freshman hats, we ran up against the assignment of writing our autobiography. It was a valuable introduction to the process of orientation with much the same effect as the compulsory shower before our swimming test. It brought us face to face with our past, and that in turn helped bring us up to date with ourselves. It gave documentary proof that we really were connected with Dartmouth. It may even have given us enough encouragement to make possible our putting the sophomores in place. When the papers were handed to the English department, and our past neatly filed away, we were ready to put our feet on the ground without hesitation, and go.
Since we haven't repeated the assignment recently, it is a question whether we actually did go. It is our question as much as it has been the question of every senior class during the months before graduation, especially March. Even the casual "How'severything?" draws a slow answer. There may be more reason for slowness this year than other years, although the other years would not admit it.
Still the present senior class might dig up more than the average number of reasons for feeling it has missed the boat. The individual, ignoring his record of overcuts, could say truthfully that half his courses haven't been worth the trouble, that of the information offered during four years only a trifling percentage could be made a part of his working knowledge, that the best things in the College can be found not in the curriculum but outside it. The individual could say the same thing any year, still ignoring those overcuts, and the conclusions would be largely true, although the result of evaluating the future in terms of the present. On that basis we may be too closely tied to the present to judge. And in practice the overcuts are not ignored, so that criticism of what the College has done is balanced by what the individual has done.
At first glance, the particular losses of the present senior class seem to take a more closely defined direction. In terms of the curriculum, the class of '37 just picked the wrong time to come to college. Where for us the problem of correlating work in many departments was solved, if at all, by accident, succeeding classes will find in the topical majors a far larger chance of finding a clear track through the curriculum. Similarly we missed by three years the new survey courses in the Social Sciences, receiving instead our introduction to the physical and social world through Evolution and Industrial Society. Outside the curriculum we almost missed the Health Service and the first stages of fraternity revival.
Yet while contrasting what we had with what the next classes will have, it would scarcely be accurate to say it is all our loss and their gain. First we don't know just what we're missing, or how much they will gain. Second it is entirely possible that watching the College in process of change has been better than enjoying the results. This is especially true for those who have gone beyond simply watching, and have contributed to the new developments, as did those undergraduates who helped in setting up the Health Committee two years ago, and the others who have been working during the past year to bring fraternities up to the standards set by the social survey report.
Even without active participation the changes in the College have had importance for the class of '37. In some measure the fact that changes were going on right in front of us has tended to be a steadying force, at a time when questions about what the College stands for, what it should stand for, lead quickly to confusion. When the immediate tendency of the College has been made clear in specific actions, less need is felt at the moment to question the larger purposes, duties, and effects of the College.
Somewhere along with the outcropping of reforms in the College, there has developed an undercurrent of change in "TheDartmouth Spirit." Possibly it is less a matter of change than of shifting to a stronger and more inclusive base. It has not meant a revival of the happy, happy spirits of the '20's. It is not explained simply in terms of a football team that knocked the pants off Yale twice, among other things. Nor is it yet definite enough to be proved and catalogued as something brand new. It can only be explained in terms of a growing tendency for undergraduates to believe that the Dartmouth spirit must include more than the football field or the Statler in late October—must include the educational process as well as the social life of the College.
A NOTICEABLE TREND
They do not believe it very strongly yet. Evidence that the belief is growing must be reckoned second hand from various signs. Undergraduates have shown increased attention to the problems of the College, partly through Vox Pops in TheDartmouth and more through individual and group work on special problems. They have revealed a growing eagerness to relate their life in the College to their life after College, notably in their support of peace activities. They have proved their willingness and ability to shoulder their own problems to a degree that would have been almost shocking earlier. The most sparkling example of this, beyond student control of dormitory and fraternity conditions, is the cooperative eating club opened over a year ago as one way of meeting the Hanover food problem. Established by Dartmouth members of the American Student Union, the eating club has operated successfully under their direction ever since. It started in a basement on Main Street. Now it has a house of its own, new orange-topped tables, good food, and the most loyal clientele in Hanover.
It may seem that Vox Pops and food and peace are pretty far from Dartmouth spirit. Yet the tendencies they represent do have a direct bearing on the Dartmouth spirit, because in departing from the idea that life in College shall be something special and distinct, these students have defined a part of what must go into the Dartmouth spirit in the future. You may see it coming out in the work of reviving fraternities, even though the goal set by the Social Survey Committee is not reached. Sometime you may see it entering the curriculum, although the journey from Memorial field to the class room is long.
What does this mean for the class of '37? It means primarily that they have not missed any boat. They have seen the College move forward on a dozen different fronts, seen it begin to change in ways that will affect hundreds of future Dartmouth men. If that leaves room for regret, it is because much of the fun is just starting.
EDWARD F. RYAN '37 Of Canton, N. Y., editor-in-chief of The Dartmouth during the past year and contributor to this issue.
