GRADUS AD PARNASSUM

ONE YEAR AGO it was the hope of the Alumni Fund Committee of the Alumni Council, and especially of the Committee's able chairman and secretary, Sumner B. Emerson '17 and Albert I. Dickerson '30, to see the Fund achieve new records. When the campaign ended on that familiar June 30 deadline many records were broken, but in one respect the Alumni Fund reached a new low.

The 1939 gifts totalled $114,709, highest in a decade. The number of contributors was 9453, representing 79%—an amazing and superlatively fine record that was by a considerable margin ahead of any other year in Dartmouth Fund history. Several of the classes, and notably some of the younger classes, made showings of great strength both in respect to numbers of contributors and totals of gifts. In decisive fashion the Fund again took first honors among the campaigns of all other colleges and universities.

Taking the figure of 1926, as a preboom pre-depression norm, it is an arresting fact that the Fund last year would have yielded $202,771.98 if the average gift (total collected divided by,number of contributors) of thirteen years earlier had again been reached. During this period the average gift has declined almost half. In 1926 it was $21.66; last year it was $12.07. It was the low point in a record otherwise remarkable and unprecedented in scope and achievement.

WHILE THE AVERAGE GIFT for the Fund has been skidding in reverse the size of the alumni body has been moving in highgear—since 1926 it has nearly doubled. One explanation for failure of the Fund in recent years, and particularly last year, to reach a higher average-gift figure is the constantly increasing total number of alumni, which means there is a larger marginal group of contributors. Attracting the interest and support of the marginal group is a good result of successful efforts. There have been bad years lately when the Fund's records were lower, but the number of contributors (of both small and larger gifts) has recently been much increased. This is such a healthy factor in the Fund that we hesitate in this editorial and objective view of the situation to say anything that questions the value of gifts of the most modest amounts. It is true that small gifts add up to help the College very substantially. The participation of their donors in the most vital of all Dartmouth projects is so essential that the Fund Committee and class agents must continue to encourage small gifts. We simply wish to bring into the open a question that is important, especially to the long-time future of the Alumni Fund.

Mr. Emerson, in a recent conference on plans for the coming campaign, emphasized the democratic nature of the Dartmouth Fund, and said this is perhaps the foundation stone of its great achievement. He wants to continue the democratic tradition of welcoming every gift, no matter how small it may appear to be to the donor. The chairman believes that over a period of time the average gift figure will be raised, to catch up with the rapid increase in size of the alumni body, and to keep pace with the very gratifying growth in the number of contributors to the Alumni Fund.

Let this discussion, then, point the way to the future—to what Dartmouth men may anticipate will someday be true. If some measure of progress can be made this year in raising the average gift, we may feel that the Fund is on the way to even larger objectives in the future.

IT is A PLEASURE to collaborate with the Alumni Fund Committee in publishing this issue of the MAGAZINE, to include in our pages this month the 25th annual report of a Fund that has no peer in distinguished accomplishment. It is indispensable to the College. And indispensable to the Fund are the class agents in whose hands the fate of the 1940 campaign will soon be placed. That they are capable, energetic, loyal hands is the surest thing we know. Mr. Emerson is again the class agents' head man, Mr. Dickerson his right hand. Good luck for new records in 1940!

OVERHEARD IN A FACULTY COATROOM: "Would it be too morbid to suggest that Mr. Qua's ALUMNI MAGAZINE article is a plea that we maintain a status Qua?"