Overtones in Time of War

STANDING LAST MONTH where he stood 25 years ago on the platform of Webster Hall President Hopkins spoke to the student body and faculty under analogous condition of world war, at the opening of a new college year. "History repeats itself," he said. He spoke in 1917 upon "The Need for Unusualness in the Work of the College." Then, as now, he argued "that it was a violation of the very principles for which the College stood that we should try to keep it usual." The hall was packed full. His audience knew, too, how unusual everything is in the College and how completely every move must be supported that will in any way help win the war. Students and faculty understood when he said: "For the immediate future, increasingly cultivation of the liberal arts must make way for development of capacity in the applied arts .... amateur scholarship must temporarily give place to professional scholarship."

Probably the College has never moved so fast, or accepted so many changes in full stride, as it has in recent months. This is what many of us think but it happened 25 years ago. Then, as now, men wondered how the College could survive, and how the qualities of democracy could ever be restored in full strength. The President said last month: "Eventually Dartmouth emerged from the chaos of that period stronger than ever before. The very magnitude of the difficulties to be overcome and the effort required to overcome them bred strength and imparted vigor to the whole College purpose."

This is the challenge to Dartmouth.... as it is to each of us.... to America ....and to the democracies the difficulties to be overcome must be met bystrength and vigor equal to our purpose.