1897
Secretary, 74 Newport Ave., West Hartford, Conn.
THE DARTMOUTH FACULTY OF 1897 AS RECALLED BY OBSERVANT SENIORS
John King Lord,:—From our first class exercise we recognized that Professor Lord was a schoolmaster. He required work, he drilled, he taught, and he maintained discipline. His was no child-centered school. Some of our professors called blindly by their shuffled cards, some called as salutes are fired in order determined by precedent. But Johnny K. called the unwary to the bar of justice.
Frank Noyes and Cap Holt, both now wizards in cross-examination, alone were able to develop a working system. When there was a paragraph in Livy that Noyes could not translate he would at that point show the keenest interest as though ready to volunteer, and so the professor would call on someone else. On the occasion when Holt could translate a single paragraph he would pay attention until this paragraph was reached and then would affect lassitude or indifference. At once,
"Holt, continue," would ring out and Cap would make a perfect recitation. Still, Johnson and not Holt got the Latin prize.
We knew that Lord was more than a subject professor. In interregna and in presidential absences he was the dignified, experienced, college head. He was a successful speaker on all occasions except when traces appeared of the heavy Daniel Webster tradition or the flowery Victorian technique highly prized in his early years. Then respectfully but firmly we "wooded up."
There was a tradition that "Lord's college courses as a senior had shown leadership of a memorable kind. This story was So old in 1893 that it was told only by medics.
In the 70's the town needed a high school building, and at a series of quarrelsome school meetings citizens argued long and loud on location, dimensions, and architecture. There was no progress, and children were growing up. Then Lord and his brother Dekes enrolled as voters, and at a wild session put through a vote that the building be a furlong long, four feet high, and four feet wide. The indignant town fathers called special meetings to rescind, but still the phalanx of students took their stand for the educational rights of children. It was necessary to wait for the Easter vacation and to have the desired building one half completed before the students returned. I am sure that this story is true, as I remember the building. It was evidently hewed out by backwoods-men, and it was of the Late French Canadian order of architecture.
Thomas Wilson Dorr Worthen:—On a midsummer day in 1893 my father took me to college to plan for my admission. Of course the president, the dean, the registrar, and the bursar were in the midst of their summer vacations, but we found Professor Worthen, gained what information we desired and made all needed preparations. Moreover the professor was so friendly that he led my father to believe that he would take personal or paternal interest in me. For reasons that I did not then understand my father seemed relieved. I knew Professor Worthen from the first as a man of friendly and sensible character and a man who was always on hand to do what needed to be done. He was an officer in precinct, town, and school district. Church, college, or a neighbor's family could be left in his hands safely at any time.
As the year progressed I knew Worthen as a professor. I do not think he was the greatest instructor of the faculty, but he was one of the most interesting. He knew his students, and he permitted no idling nor disrespect for mathematics. He was good-humored, and his annual jokes became classics. Their course could be charted and foretold as that of eclipses or comets. The best one in conic sections went over with a bang in divisions I and 2, but division 3 was ready, and there was not a smile. The professor told the story admirably well, but all looked with patient attention, made notes, and then glanced with perplexity at Mahoney, Maurice Brown, and Bill Ham. It was some days before the professor fully regained his equanimity.
Dartmouth had a dry faculty at this time, but the professorial wives used to chip together to buy sauces and other condiments sent out by a Boston firm, which unfortunately also imported liquors. For the group Professor Worthen always sent in the order. In our junior year the expressman left on the sidewalk in front of the Worthen home a box plainly marked "S. S. Pierce and Company, Boston Importer." Bill Randall and some others secured the box. I was a handyman of sorts at this time for the Worthen home, and I recall the professor's distress as he turned detective. He could replace the sauces but he feared that it would be claimed that the box contained contraband goods. The town then would be as shocked as it was when the crate addressed to Deacon Downing and marked "Drugs" broke open and revealed material for the Medical College dissecting rooms.
Once again I knew Professor Worthen in Concord as a state official, an able and efficient member of the Public Service Commission. Again he was a man with complete community interests. I recall with pleasure that Professor Worthen and I were at this time brother deacons of the South Congregational church in Concord. My election was after probation and by a divided vote.
Fred Parker Emery:—An early selection made by Dr. Tucker for his reorganized faculty was the appointment of Professor Emery, a graduate of Dartmouth and an instructor in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The appointment brought a new force into the civic and educational life of the college. Professor Emery was an able man, clear-sighted and prompt in action, and with the willingness and aptitude for work. On the faculty he was an appreciated committee man.
His father was the village merchant of a New Hampshire town, and was entirely as his neighbors said, "in easy circumstances." He sent his two sons to Dartmouth, and both became college professors.
Fred Emery could smoke cigarettes lovingly and persistently at a time when Hanover was allergic to tobacco. He could wear non-clerical clothes, not to prove that he had been a student in Paris, but because they were comfortable. In religious circles it was. whispered that he was not quite "orthodox," but as long as he was a good Christian the students did not care too much. Emery was a raconteur extraordinary, whose stories of personal exploits and the adventures of his friends were pure literature and did not need to be documented.
In the class and seminar room he was generous with praise and discriminating in his helpful suggestions. To him dangling participles and split infinitives were not sins, but were a hindrance to the clarity of effective speech.
The students loved Fred Emery, not alone for his ability in his classes in English, nor because he was an urbane gentleman, but because he was equally interested in all students, rich or poor, dull or book-minded. The son of a banker or a farmer meant no more to him than the son of a barber or a hired man. Nor were the boys who entered from Kimball Union Academy of more interest than those from the Boston Latin School.
Of Mrs. Emery it may be said that the Fred Emerys were the first couple in Hanover to bear this modern and non-Calvinistic title of social cameraderie. The Fred Emerys made a gracious home of their new house on Webster St.
