Active Defense Role

ALTHOUGH THEORETICALLY on vacation at his summer home in Manset, Maine, President Hopkins devoted a large part of his summer to national defense activities. He traveled to New York a number of times to attend meetings of the Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies, of which he is a member, and to meet with other educators to discuss the role of the colleges and universities in the national defense program. In addition to almost daily contact by telephone, he made periodic visits to his office in Hanover to direct Dartmouth's endeavors to cooperate in the national program, and at both Manset and Hanover he carried on an unusually heavy summer correspondence.

Early in July President Hopkins cabled the Preparatory Schools Association in "London, offering to reopen the Dartmouth dormitories to serve as a distributing center for the British schoolboys who were expected to be evacuted to this country to continue their studies. The offer was accepted by the Association and accommodations for some 1700 boys between the ages of 8 and 13 were secured in American and Canadian schools by a voluntary committee in this country, but difficulties at the English end forced the postponement of the summer plan. There is still a slight possibility that the evacuation plan will be carried out, in which case the Dartmouth offer would have to be reconsidered in the light of possible student cooperation.

On August 5 President Hopkins sent a letter to approximately 4,000 members of the Classes of 1938 through 1942, informing them of the new way of qualifying for the United States Naval Reserve open to college men between the ages of 19 and 26, and offering to provide the necessary letters of recommendation and transcripts of academic records. Requests for transcripts came back from approximately 250 men, one-fifth of whom were undergraduates, but it is not known how many were accepted by the Naval Reserve. Undergraduates forced to be absent from college for the initial 30-day training period of the Naval Reserve course will be allowed to catch up in their studies by special work.

Early in September President Hopkins sent out another letter to 234 members of the Classes of 1936 through 1940 informing them of a special course in meteorology being given at M. I. T. in cooperation with the U. S. Army Air Corps. The special course, designed to train navigators, is open to college graduates with two years of college study in mathematics or physics, or with a degree in mechanical or civil engineering.

In another national defense move just before College reopened President Hopkins named the American Defense Dartmouth Group, which is described in the following article.