NEWS OF THE FACULTY
PROFESSOR LLOYD P. RICE of the Department of economics has returned to his teaching in the College after an absence of seven months, during which time he has been serving as Financial Adviser to the Philippine Islands Government where the revision of the Tax System was carried on. As the position of the United States in the Orient has become a matter of heightened concern, both because of the far-reaching effects of the European War and the question of trade relations with Japan, Professor Rice's findings and impressions are especially interesting at this time. Mrs. Rice, who accompanied him on this trip, did considerable traveling about in the Island group.
"Gold is where you find it," and PROFESSOR HAROLD M. BANNERMAN of the Department of Geology may be the cause of an inrush of prospectors into the New Hampshire Hills, as the result of a talk given before the Dartmouth Lake Sunapee Region group recently. Professor Bannerman urged that a comprehensive survey of the region be made in order to determine whether or not rich ores exist in any quantity. There are many new uses for a variety of minerals, he said, which were considered useless fifty years ago, and a survey would determine to what extent these minerals are to be found in local hills. He is quoted as saying however, that he doubted if the desirable minerals exist in sufficiently large deposits for commercial exploitation.
Considerable discussion was created at a recent meeting of the New England Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools by PROFESSOR RALPH A. BURNS of the Dartmouth Department of Education, when he was quoted as saying that "the normal school is the spoiled child of the state departments of education." In tracing the rise of the normal school in the Twentieth Century, and its evolution into the Teachers' College, Professor Burns implied that the neglect of certain cultural colleges to provide teacher-training responsibility brought about much of the growth of these institutions, and unless the system in vogue at present is changed, the liberal college must go out of business entirely in the matter of training teachers. In some liberal arts colleges the fight was given up long ago, but others still battling may win out.
Science has come to the aid of old New England common sense in proving that good crop years follow a mild March and April. PROFESSOR CHARLES J. LYON, who now and then discovers the age of a bridge or building by consulting the wood-rings in the construction material, told members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, recently, that as a result of study of the trees blown down by the famous hurricane of 1938, growing years of trees show greater results when these months are warm. The answer is that snow and spring rain water under such conditions seep into the ground instead of running off into rivers. "When Spring is mild, the crops run wild" is an old New England saying.
