1897

THE DARTMOUTH FACULTY OF 1897 AS RECALLED BY OBSERVANT SENIORS

William Jewett Tucker:—lt is difficult for a member of 1897 to write of President Tucker without being either trite or ful- some in praise. Pres. Tucker early became a Dartmouth tradition and has been accepted as such by the class which has made its proud boast, "We entered with him."

Personally I can recall but one statement that he ever made and that was his recurring petition "for those who go about their business this day," a statement that I have set before me with satisfaction but not with success. It is different with others. Many classmates can remember the imagery, the ideals, and the appeals of many morning chapels. They have through the years kept a picture of the president above their desks as a religious devotee would have a symbol or the representation of a saint. To them these college exercises have remained a lifelong inspiration.

To all of us idealists or politicians has clung the influence of the daily morning- chapel over which Dr. Tucker presided. No member of the class can forget the Grecian profile of the president's face and the deliberation that preceded the effective first words of the addresses. We liked the chapel, not because it was religious, but because it was dignified. We liked the idealism, although we believed that trans- cendentalism had passed with Emerson.

In general the class looked upon President Tucker as a superior man. highly polished and keenly sure of his self-confidence. I was pleased to see the startled look on the president's face when the Glee Club first sang Hovey's hymn to the bibulous beginnings of Dartmouth. President Tucker taught no classes, and few students knew him in any personal way. Those who did were college leaders like Woodworth, McCornack, and Marshall, and their affection for Dr. Tucker was unbounded. He believed in and encouraged student leaders able to bring honor to the college.

Brown University students spoke affectionately of their great president as "Benny," but no one thought a nickname or a first name appropriate for the president of Dartmouth. To the students he was not a companion but a guide. He spoke with precision and assurance, he spoke as a scholar who knew literature and life, and as a master who knew the approaches to the minds of students.

Charles Henry Hitchcock:—Prolessor Hitchcock was a scholar with recognition wider than that won by any other member of the Dartmouth faculty. He was a productive scientist in the field of geology and mineralogy, as his father had been before him.

In his classroom he was not a great teacher, nor was he a disciplinarian of the Puritan type. He accepted the mendacity of students, he failed none who registered in his classes, and his subjects were largely attended by those of the baser sort. He was a most friendly man, and one who with a merry twinkle in his eyes passed over the crudities of boys who thoroughly respected him, though they sang ribald songs and tried to make college courses as detached and nonsensical as are the comics in mod- ern newspapers.

He was absent-minded, but he attended chapel each morning while other professors slept; he on the president's left, Gabriel on the right. With unbridled joy we watched him the morning that he had forgotten a necktie. With school-girl embarrassment he covered his throat with a geological hand.

He was the keenest of men as he named the minerals and traced the flood lines of early history. I recall that some time after my graduation I was with Professor Hitchcock in the mountains, following a disused road as we searched for a terminal moraine. I noted with the haste of an enthusiast the scratches in the rocks but the professor said in kindly criticism, "My father told me long ago that cartwheel striae could not locate glacial directions."

Professor Hitchcock knew his New Hampshire, Vermont, and Maine as Professor Adams knew his Greek grammar. He knew them town by town, he tramped over them, he surveyed them, and his memory was encyclopedic. He climbed mountains with the agility of a skier, but he observed, checked, and mapped all the way down.

Charles Francis Emerson:—The records of long years show clearly that college deans are never human. They are suspicious, they depend upon statistics, and they become completely saturated with their unquestionable greatness. No student argues with a dean, he appeases him. I am sure that Neville Chamberlin must have been a college student with a checkered career.

"Chuck" was different. He was the greatest dean Dartmouth has ever had, and in this remark I will be upheld by those who had official connections with the dean's office more extensive than my own, inventive, unconventional souls like Coakley, Bill Ham, Joe Ryan, and of course, Erdix Smith.

In his decisions Emerson was firm and just, in his conclusions liberal and tolerant. He did not expect that students would tell the devastating truth, he did not think them sinners when they lied. He knew that boys have got drunk and cheated in examinations since the days of Noah and Jacob and still have been recorded among the Biblical alumni. I cannot recall that Emerson was a great teacher of physics, but he paid liberally to have his wood bucksawed—Foss was an expert at this—and with entire courage he broke up our 1897—1896 cane rush just before wholesale mayhem had been committed.

In my official years in New Hampshire Hanover usually sent a college professor to the legislature. Almost without exception their attempts to combine political activities and a pontifical manner were productive of merriment. This was not the case with the aging Emerson. My heart warms as I think of his friendly appreciation, his fatherly interest, his apt conclusions, and his effective method of organizing and leading his committee.

PROFESSOR JESSUP Sketched in class in 1895 by F. E. Heald '97,noxu state supervisor of teacher training inagriculture for the State of Massachusetts.

Secretary, State Capitol, Hartford, Conn.