An Obligation to Alumni

Not Just Four Years' Education But Fifty Years' Inspiration Is Dartmouth's Duty to Her 19,000 Sons

IT HAS BEEN suggested that I write something for the MAGAZINE, designed to help the Dartmouth Alumni Fund; but what follows is only incidentally thus intended. When I began to think what I should write, the first question was: Why should an alumnus contribute to the Fund? And that question immediately suggested another: What does the College do for the alumnus?

I began to set down on a pad of paper the answers to that question. The results were a little disturbing. They suggest that the College is not, perhaps, fulfilling its whole function.

After his graduation, the average alumnus—which means perhaps ninety-five men out of every hundred in the alumni body—receives direct communications from the College twice a year. He receives blank forms on which he may apply for tickets to football games, and he receives requests to contribute to the Alumni Fund. If he applies for tickets—unless by virtue of athletic prowess or of membership in some other privileged class—he gets seats a little worse than he could buy at a slight premium at any ticket agency. If he contributes to the Alumni Fund, he receives thanks. He receives other communications from his class officers or from alumni organizations; but so far as the College itself is concerned he tends to be forgotten.

Now a man who goes to Dartmouth is an undergraduate for say four years; but he is an alumnus for say fifty. There are, at any given time, say twenty-four hundred undergraduates; but there are say nineteen thousand alumni. Is the College's potential service to Dartmouth men ended when they graduate? Is there not some way in which the College as a college can continue to enrich their lives? Is there not something continuing and important and valuable which the College as a college can give to the alumnus as long as he lives?

DARTMOUTH'S CAPITAL

In what does the capital of Dartmouth College consist: in its real estate, its chattels, its cash in hand, its investments, its faculty, administrative organization? If any or all these elements comprise the capital of the College, then the destruction of them would destroy the college.

But obviously that is not the case. Destroy all these things and Dartmouth men would recreate them. The capital of the College is its alumni body. Dartmouth men are Dartmouth's only irreplaceable asset.

Not all of any one Dartmouth man can be considered a part of the capital of the College; but in each Dartmouth man there is something upon which the College can fairly count as an asset. This is not money. It is not even a matter of "good will." These are by any accountant listed as tangible assets; but tangible assets are as treacherous as direct evidence in a court of law. They can be set down as figures on a piece of paper, but figures lie. Perhaps the only real values are intangible.

The true capital of the College consists of that part of each Dartmouth man which Dartmouth put in him, and put in him to stay. But if this be true, then everything which Dartmouth gives to a Dartmouth man—undergraduate or alumnus becomes a part of the capital of the College, upon which the College can always draw. The more the College gives, the richer it becomes.

What are these intangibles which Dartmouth gives its men, and which become thereafter a part of the inalienable capital of the College? The answer must be different for every individual. For one it may consist in memories, isolated moments of beauty or of rich content; or it may be a capacity for appreciation, as a result of which beauty in any form becomes the possession of the beholder; or it may be friendships, or it may be enmities. A good enemy is sometimes as satisfactory a possession as a good friend. The answer may be a sense of competence. It may be humility or it may be pride; it may be modesty or a just arrogance.

There are perhaps only two or three things which Dartmouth can give to every man, and which every man will treasure. One of these is the consciousness of being a part of something stable and permanent. From my personal contact with young men today I suspect that the thing they miss most keenly and hunger for most ardently is stability. They are taught that the old order changeth; they see all around them old things overthrown and new things set up in their places. They find themselves emerging into a world without fixed foundations, where what was morality yesterday is prejudice today; where the given word is forgotten when expediency so directs; where Change is the first commandment. They absorb from their current reading and from the conversation of the day the philosophy of the man in the trenches; eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow you die. They discover in life nothing of which they can say: this is always true, this is always here, upon this I can rely, to this if I am lost I can always return and find myself again.

A college is permanent as a river is permanent, forever changing yet always the same, forever departing yet always here. At an alumni luncheon in Hanover two or three years ago, the speaker for the fifty year class said to the seniors: "Fifty years from today, one of you young men will be standing in my place here, speaking to the seniors of that day." Nothing could more completely express in easily comprehensible terms the permanency of the College as a living organism.

Is not the College failing in its dutyand failing to take advantage of its opportunity—unless it makes every effort to put into each Dartmouth man a fixed and unshakeable sense that he is a part of something permanent, enduring, immortal?

COLLEGIATE DIVORCE

Upon graduation, the College applies for and receives a divorce from each senior. Thereafter its only formal contact with him is to invite him to come back two or three times every fall and watch the children at their play, and to bill him every spring for alimony. The College halls that were his home still receive him as a visitor and treat him with a kindly tolerance; but he is a visitor and nothing more. The alumnus, as lonely as a divorced but still, devoted husband, turns to his club. His club is the association of Dartmouth alumni. That association sends him news—through the ALUMNI MAGAZINE—of what the children are doing and how things are going at the old home; and it sees to it that he pays his alimony.

The ALUMNI MAGAZINE has to a considerable extent taken over the responsibility of giving every Dartmouth alumnus the feeling that he is still a part of the enduring and immortal unity which is the College. In it he may always hope to find his own name remembered, or the names of men he knew. If the true capital of the College consists of Dartmouth men, then certainly the MAGAZINE performs a function of the highest importance in preserving that capital. It seeks to do for the alumni what the College should do; and its value is increasing. The distribution of the MAGAZINE was for a while by individual subscription. It is now to an increasing extent by class subscription as entire groups, and its total circulation has thereby been greatly increased.

The policy adopted and put into effect by at least one class has been to.send the MAGAZINE to every member of the class who will read it. Whether a member of that class receives the publication does not depend upon whether or not he pays his clues. If it is felt that he will read the ALUMNI MAGAZINE, that his interest in the College and his feeling of being a part of the College will be revived or maintained by reading it, then he gets the MAGAZINE. It is sent to him not as a service to him but as a service to the College; the College, not the man, is thus put under obligation.

It is possible that in the Alumni Fund campaigns, and in mail matter sent to the alumni, too much emphasis has been put on the obligation of alumni to the College, and too little on the service the College owes the alumni. Certainly in all such appeals, too much emphasis has been put on the amount of financial return to the College. The alumni as a whole are the capital on which the safety and permanence of the College rests; and the alumnus who pays no class dues, who makes no contribution to the Alumni Fund, is as much a part of the capital of the College as the largest contributor. Idle capital, capital which returns no income, is capital none the less. Money in a checking account, even in a closed bank, is still money; and in many cases it is money recoverable at par. Any financier who tore up stocks and bonds which ceased—for a while or forever—to pay interest and dividends would greatly aggravate his losses from year to year. Any college which neglects those of its alumni unable or unwilling to make any financial contribution to its needs is equally wasteful. Certainly a $2 subscription to the ALUMNI MAGAZINE, a check for $3.50 for class dues, a .check for $5 or $50 or $500 to the Alumni Fund is in itself of no great importance. The real importance, the real value to the College, lies in the love for Dartmouth which prompted some man to draw that check, or to wish that he could draw one.

This emphasis on amounts, quotas, objectives, has very possibly alienated from the college many alumni. Last year the alumni gave about §114,000 to the Fund. This was an average contribution of about $l2. It was an average contribution of about 11630 per class. But thirty-nine classes made less than this average contribution; and of the ninety-three or four hundred individual contributors, possibly sixty or seventy per cent made less than the average contribution.

These are accurate figures, but they are meaningless and without importance. The only figure of real importance to the College, in connection with the Alumni Fund, is the percentage of contributors. That figure is a statement of Dartmouth's capital account. It is an accurate statement of the capital strength of the College.

MEANS FOR SATISFACTION

In terms of the relation of gifts to living graduates, seventy-nine per cent of Dartmouth alumni were sufficiently interested in the College last year to derive satisfaction and happiness from giving to the Alumni Fund. In nine classes, by one means or another, every man was listed as a contributor. In seven of these classes, the percentage of contributions to living graduates was in excess of 100%. In many cases the generosity of the living or the forethought of the dead, provided contributions in the names of persons who are no longer living alumni of Dartmouth.

In this fact, it may be suggested, there lies the seed of a plan by which the College can be of high service to its alumni. Most men derive satisfaction, find their lives richer, find their dreams take form, if they can think of themselves as a part of something permanent. The College can give its men that satisfaction. Something of the sort has been begun in the class memorial funds. A standard "deed of gift" has been prepared. But this "deed of gift" tends to defeat its own highest purpose; its purpose to offer to the alumni the right to think of themselves as a part of something permanent. The fourth paragraph of the standard form provides that:

"Individual members of the class may through special gift or bequest endow their annual contributions to the Alumni Fund and thereby provide for listing their names, after death, among the.... contributors to the Alumni Fund."

But Paragraph 5 reads in part: "At the death of the last member of the class or at an earlier date by agreement....the foregoing conditions shall expire "

This paragraph should be deleted. It ought to be possible for a Dartmouth alumnus to make a bequest to the College, the income of which is to be contributed each year to the Alumni Fund in his name, and not only during his life, or till the death of his last surviving classmate, but forever. It is possible to look forward to a day when the list of contributors to the Fund will number not ninety-four hundred names, but ninetyfour thousand, and with no distinction between the living and the dead. For a man who has made a continuing contribution to an immortal thing does not die.

And Dartmouth is immortal. There are perhaps men in the College today who are in the fifth or sixth generation of Dartmouth men. There are men in Dartmouth today who can-look forward with well founded hope to the day when their descendants six or a dozen generations removed will be Dartmouth men. Dartmouth goes on; and Dartmouth consists not of buildings and moneys but of Dartmouth men. The amount of money a man contributes means nothing. The fact that he wishes to contribute means that there is in him a living feeling that he is part of the permanent life of the College. A man who gives $5 each year to the Fund should be able to bequeath $150 to the College, endowing forever an annual contribution of approximately the same amount in his name. It ought to be made easily possible for every Dartmouth man to do this; and to know that his name will be forever listed as one of those who loved Dartmouth well enough to want to contribute to her permanence.

And this should be done not because it would mean a continuing and increasing income for the College but as a service to the alumnus himself. The class memorial funds to some extent serve this purpose; but they serve it for a limited time. For administrative reasons it is easier to deal with the alumni by classes; but classes die. The College does not die. When the class ceases to exist, the class fund ceases to exist. But the College does not cease to exist. The love which the members of that class had for the College does not cease to exist with the deaths of the men in the class. It lives on in their sons, in the friends to whom they liked to speak of Dartmouth, in a thousand ways.

When Dartmouth accepts a freshman, it accepts a responsibility. When it graduates a senior, that responsibility has not ended. A higher, and a more difficult, responsibility remains to be fulfilled. Dartmouth men believe that Dartmouth, more than most colleges, holds the hearts of its alumni. By that very fact, the College has an opportunity to serve those alumni; to continue so long as they -live and afterward to give them intangible and precious things which will enrich their lives.

Every man who can be led to think of himself as a part of the permanent and immortal entity which is the College has been thus enriched. Every man who writes into his will a bequest to the College, no matter how small, with the certainty that by doing so he has become a part of the long history of the college, has been thus enriched. The amount is nothing, the thing is everything.

So long as the College—not the classes, but the College—does less than its utmost to make every Dartmouth man feel himself a part of the permanent and immortal life of the College, it has done less than its duty by Dartmouth men.

BEN AMES WILLIAMS, DARTMOUTH'S HUNTER-SPORTSMAN-WRITER