THE UNDERGRADUATE CHAIR
THE EDITOR OF THE UndergraduateChair has been compelled to take the dust-proof covers off the Chair behind the safety of locked doors, for, as we go to press, Hanover is in the hands of 650 greentoqued insurgents who are making a parade ground out of Main Street, a stage out of Commons porch, and a shambles out of upperclassmen's furniture. For the time being, no upperclassman is safe and he won't be until more non-freshmen arrive in town.
But, in all fairness to the 650 members of the class of 1943, they are not spending all their time telling new-made friends of their prep school records or the girl back home. The Administration has kept them busy going through a constant stream of orientation, registration, matriculation, and convocation, with an eye toward education and, for approximately 500 of them, graduation. In few respects, however, can the class of 1943 be called a unique one, although it does include among its numbers the first full-blooded Indian Dartmouth has had since the days of Roland Sundown. Before Sundown it was Fred Owl, in 1927, who gave Dartmouth its only representative of the race for which the College was originally established.
Though Eleazar Wheelock at one time said: "None know, nor can any, without Experience, Well conceive of the Difficulty of Educating an Indian. They would soon kill themselves with Eating and Sloth if care were not exercised . . . ." there is apparently not much trouble expected by the College in the care and feeding of the modern Dartmouth Indian. According to all reports, there is very little difference between an Indian and anyone else today in Dartmouth. Life in the freshman class is the Great Leveller and, except for a slightly darker shade of skin color, which, at this time of year, could be passed off as a Summer tan hangover, he will look just like his fellow-classmates. His Indian headdress has been supplanted by a little green toque with a white button on its top.
Although not a freshman, there is another unique newly enrolled student, one who will enter in the junior class and will carry out a course in engineering. He is a refugee student from Germany, the son of a prosperous merchant who is now dead. His mother, when last heard from, was on her way to London but that was just before the war broke out. The young German boy has been brought to Dartmouth to study through aid of a scholarship, the money for which was raised by the student body last year.
The geographical distribution of the new freshman class is spread over a wider area than any of recent years. Of the class, which will number approximately 650, there will be 17 foreign students, hailing from 12 countries: two will come to Dartmouth from Japan, one of whom is the son of a Dartmouth alumnus; one comes from Guatamala; two from Rio de Janeiro; one from Canada; two from China; one from Cuba; one from England (he crossed on the Queen Mary on its first black-out voyage); two from Honolulu; one from Italy, another son of a Dartmouth alumnus; one from Panama; three from Porto Rico; and, lastly, two from Syria where their fathers, both Dartmouth alumni, are members of the faculty at the University of Beirut.
Unusual also in the distribution is the spread by states. New York and Massachusetts, that have been, in most years, closely matched in representatives, now find themselves in a position where New York State has approximately 30 more freshmen than has the Bay State. Third ranking is New
Jersey, with Connecticut, Ohio, Illinois, and Pennsylvania running right behind it. Missouri, which has usually had to be satisfied with only a handful of representatives, has now popped up with 18 men in the freshman class, and Minnesota, which, during the present college generation, has had as many as 25 fledglings must now be content with only 12. When the final statistics are compiled, it will be found that there are 37 states sending their sons to Dartmouth and that in the entire class there will be approximately 90 sons of Dartmouth alumni. This is about the average of recent years.
But regardless of nationality, of color, of creed, of political line, and regardless of whether a new freshman's father was a Dartmouth man or never went past the eighth grade, Dartmouth's newest and greenest undergraduates have come to Hanover to grow up as Dartmouth sons, to listen and learn, to take four tough courses and a snap, and to cheer the teams. Conflicting experiences with a unity of purpose—to get an education. Dartmouth may offer the facilities to educate but it cannot guarantee a finished product. 650 green laborers will have to be shown the machines and will be advised how to use them—what they do with the raw material is entirely up to themselves.
No ARGUMENTS ABOUT DARTMOUTH IN THIS FAMILY Dr. Edward J. O'Brien Jr., famed surgeon and football official of Boston, last year hadthe unique distinction of having a son in each of Dartmouth's four classes. Here on theInn corner are shown (left to right) Paul '39, Richard '42, daughter Mary, Dr. O'Brien,Edward J. III '40, and Robert '41, strong tackle candidate for the 1939 eleven.
