Gradus Ad Parnassum
THE TEMPO OF LIFE and affairs in a college community is a thing of rapid change. We don't know about any other center of light and learning. But on Hanover Plain one season gives way to another in a manner similar to one point of interest moving rapidly out of focus and another center of attention as quickly emerging, with all eyes and thoughts riveted upon it.
The seasons move slowly along the lines of the calendar. But they change abruptly in the College. In the October height of the football schedule those who had decided "not to go to any out of town games this year" are seen climbing into cars, bound for neighboring stadia, on Friday afternoons. Whatever anyone may say about the virtues of football, the entire season is a period of excitement. It gets into the blood of the old timer and the greenest freshman.
Suspense breaks sharply with the last game. Attendance at evening lectures thereafter picks up. A symphony concert packs Webster Hall to the rafters; standing room is crowded at the Christmas carol service. The library and books, studies and discussion, move into focus. Old timers lay thoughts of football away and decide "not to go to any out of town games next year." The greenest freshman finds much company among 2,472 other students in assiduously applying himself to the search for wisdom and knowledge.
THE SHARP AND MISTY MORNINGS" of autumn fade as the mercury falls. December days are gray. The sun is a ghost, a fugitive rarely seen. Gray days fill the cushioned chairs in the Tower Room. Even the scholars of the community, and much more the less zealous students, turn eagerly to books and the warmth of conversation before an open fire.
The American college is not a monastery. All undergraduates are not scholars; but for all in common the intellectual life is a vital, constantly challenging influence. Beyond the assigned reading, recitations, and quizzes is the limitless horizon of learning. For the student, as for their teachers and Everyman, there are the deepest satisfactions in the pursuit and occasional capture of truth, beauty, and art.
These satisfactions for the student, to be achieved more through self-discipline than by direction, are the objectives of the teacher. The struggle of the student, and the life-long incentive to the graduate, toward the goal of education is the highest, most enduring purpose of the College.
ONE OF THE interesting developments of the month was the highly successful tour taken by two members of the faculty, speaking at alumni meetings in Boston and New York. Prof. Frank M. Anderson addressed both meetings on "What Germany Gained at Munich" and reports are that only the exigencies of his railroad timetable finally put a stop to discussion. Prof. Herbert W. Hill, dean of the Alumni College held anually nually during the week of Hanover Holiday in June, introduced the evening program in each instance with a description of objectives of closer relationships between faculty and alumni of the College.
The Boston meeting, beginning with a roast beef supper, adjourned to larger quarters when more than 200 alumni turned out. In New York the dining room of the attractive new Dartmouth Club was filled for the occasion. Committees in charge at both places state their interest in arranging a series of talks by representatives of the faculty during the winter.
The idea for these meetings, and for a talk given by Dean Bill in Cleveland last month, sprang from Hanover Holiday. Plans for the week of vacationing and intellectual fare coming in June will be announced shortly.
TEN CENT FOOTBALL is suggested by Dr. Hutchins. Fie wants to de-commercialize football by emasculating gate receipts. His suggestion is probably not a serious one. You never know. The reformers of the game appear with the first hard freeze.
Football pays the freight for other sports. Shall we then abandon all other athletics, everything from hockey to freshman lacrosse and gymnastics for the undernourished?
Endowment is needed in college athletics. Endowment is the greatest need of the College and the most difficult need to meet. The most thoughtful and helpful benefactors are those who provide an institution with funds for unrestricted uses.
Athletic Council reserve funds should be increased to the point where minor sports deficits can be carried, and the "athletics for all" program be endowed. That will be a happy day. Then football will only need to worry about supporting itself. Then we may have a better home game schedule.
NO ONE (that we know of) envies the Director of Admissions his job. His is the pleasant task of selecting about 675 boys for the entering class each year from a qualified list of applicants that runs to several times that number.
We could go on and on, and are apt to do so, throwing bouquets in the direction of Dean Robert C. Strong '24. Not only has he survived several seasons of selecting entering classes but his wizardry in securing just the right number approaches the miraculous. The Trustees asked him to admit a class numbering 675. At the end of registration (in spite of the hurricane and other complications) there were 676 boys enrolled in the class of 1942.
It sounds easy but it isn't. Nothing short of genius is required to choose the right number of applicants in April that will equal any given figure in September, in Hanover.
IN THE 16 years that the Selective Process of Admission has been in operation a great many alumni have been called upon to interview applicants for the College. These men have acquired some appreciation of the difficulty of judging the qualifications of boys seeking admission, and have learned of some of the many factors that the Director of Admissions must take into account.
Every case turned down is a mistake in the eyes of the applicant, his parents, all his relatives, and his friends. The circle of supporters surrounding many unsuccessful applicants for admission is often a considerable one. The top of Dean Strong's desk during the weeks preceding and following the selection of the class in April gives evidence that supporters are also articulate.
Aided by the faculty committee on admissions and by a staff of experienced helpers, Dean Strong is fortunately able to call upon the wisdom of others, including many alumni, in the task that is obviously such a difficult one. Officers of the College and members of the Alumni Council and others who are closely connected with the admissions work know that full and careful consideration is given to every application that has a fair chance of success. The higher standards of academic accoplishment in the student body that are so evident in the College today as compared to just a fe.w years ago is testimony to the effectiveness of operation of the Selective Process of Admission and is tribute to the extremely thoughtful and able work of selection being carried on under Dean Strong's direction. Disappointments, often very keen to applicants, are unavoidable in the situation. The reassuring and gratifying factor is knowledge and confidence that applicants are judged on merit and on the comparative promise they give of contributing values to the College and of themselves taking advantage of all the College offers its undergraduates.
INTEREST GROWS by leaps and bounds in the possibility of a new Webster Hall on the campus. When Baker Library replaced the outgrown and inadequate Wilson Hall as the intellectual center of the College it was felt th'at a longtime and most pressing need had been met. The need for new library quarters was so acute a decade ago that no other requirement of the College, past or present, can be compared with it. But the proposed theater and auditorium promises to contribute so much to the life of the College, and the nation, that its importance and significance have steadily increased.
Whenever it may become possible to finance the project there will be, for the first time in many college generations, a place where the whole college can gather for its great occasions.
UNDER THE VERY able leadership and direction of the faculty department of art, the fine arts have flourished since their center was established in Carpenter Hall nearly a decade ago. The lack of adequate and wellequipped facilities for the dramatic and musical arts have handicapped these departments and activities for years. Their growth and steady development have nevertheless crowded existing quarters to the point where rooms and halls all over town are in use and no one of them is right, or was built for present purposes.
The encouragement of aesthetics in a liberal college is essential to achieving its purposes. The aesthetics have hardly been neglected at Dartmouth. In some cases certain branches of the arts have flourished. In others, and this is true of the dramatic and musical arts, there has also been constant improvement, and there have been notable accomplishments. But only limited stimulation can be given to aesthetic influences without providing proper and essential facilities for their growth in the college community.
Profitable use of the hoped-for new building has been visualized for the dramatic and musical activity of the College during the academic year. The plans of the Dramatists' Guild for creating in Hanover a Summer Drama Festival of broad scope and national importance promise to make a cultural contribution to the life of the country of the greatest significance. The new Webster Hall may well become, through the year-around program of dramatic and musical life, one of the most gratifying influences in aesthetics that Dartmouth, as an institution, can exert. The opportunity is a challenging one. Let us hope that ways and means may be found to take full advantage of it.
IN THE COURSE of his extremely interesting lectures in Hanover last spring Commander MacMillan described the experiences of members of his numerous parties in the Far North. He spoke of the animated conversations among the men during the first days of a trip; of the gradual growth of a feeling of loneliness; of subjects of conversation becoming thinner and less varied; and finally, he said, almost the only thing about which the men could talk indefinitely was the reminiscences of college days. This subject, apparently, could not be exhausted. The members of the trip who were college men always found themselves able to fall back on college days to keep their minds away from melancholy.
Bill Cunningham once filled his column in the Boston Post with a tribute to the Dartmouth wives whose heroism in undergoing untold hours of reminiscence is too little recognized. They do suffer—we have seen them. But they are good sports and accept their fate stoically, realizing too late that they are married to a past that must be talked about, at every possible opportunity, and until the small hours of the morning.
A DARTMOUTH wife wrote this (It was printed in Ed Leech's 1914 „ column):
Oh, my darlings a dear Dartmouth daddyI'm privileged above most of my sexSo I kneel at his kneeAnd list meekly while heMorals and manners and make-up corrects.All traditions at rigeur at DartmouthAre stuffed down my throat in a hunkMy digestion is weakBut I turn my off cheekDartmouth wifi.es can't say: "That's thebunk."
Yes, my hubby's a huge Dartmouth he-manA demon with ski and with skateI pray only that heLove both Alma and meShe's his first love, I hitched up too late.
FOR YEARS officers of classes and alumni in other key positions have hoped that some way might be found to place the MAGAZINE in the hands of a much larger number of Dartmouth men every month. The attempt has been made to secure the support of all the classes for group subscription plans. Such plans have already proven to be the right formula for a number of classes. The next year will determine whether or not the plan can be extended to all classes in the alumni body.
The complete circulation plans, through class organizations, have achieved some considerable success this fall. A total of 39 classes have adopted the 100% group subscription plan and account for an increase of about 3500 in the MAGAZINE'S circulation this year, to a total of about 10,000. The Secretaries Association and Alumni Council are to be credited with careful study and thorough planning in this notable result of the work to date.
Keeping open and developing the lines of communication that will keep men in touch with each other, that will keep class officers in touch with members of their classes, and that will maintain a close and well informed relationship between the College and the alumni, is a large order. No better means of accomplishing this very desirable end is available than through the columns of this MAGAZINE. Experience has shown that any plan to achieve this purpose must be one easy of operation and one that will not interfere with such important activities as the Alumni Fund or other major alumni projects. If the collection of nominal class dues from a majority of men in every class can be successfully achieved by class treasurers the plan of complete circulation to all alumni will be a success. The publication of the MAGAZINE is and must be primarily a matter of alumni concern. Its circulation, whether large or small, will directly depend upon the efforts made by class officers and the support given to them by the men in their classes.
