Address to the College
Senior Class Day Oration Calls for Continuance of Dartmouth's Long Record of Service
MR. PRESIDENT, MEMBERS OF THECLASS OF 1942, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN:
I ask you to consider for a moment the breath-taking changes that have taken place since the comparatively peaceful spring of the present senior class's freshman year; to reflect upon the completeness of the changes in the physical world about us and the changes in the attitudes of the earth's inhabitants.
I should like to suggest to you this morning that the last four years spent at Dartmouth have produced in the students of this college a more acute and profound change in outlook than in the students of any comparative interval in history. It has been a period in which we have grown up with our parents and both progenitor and progeny have grown up with the nation. Our elders have observed the signs of the times in taxes, becoming more burdensome with each legislative assemblage; we, in draft lotteries and draft numbers. The spring nights of Hanover of 1939 when the all pervasive thoughts were of exoduses to Northampton and Poughkeepsie have been supplanted by equally spring-like nights when such thoughts were often secondary to those of war.
It has in these last few months been my fear, cloistered on the Hanover Plain and sequestered in the laboratories and scientific environs of the Dartmouth Medical School, that I and possibly some of my colleagues, despite this collegiate maturation of which I have spoken, may not yet have come to a complete awareness of our national state—to a realization of the terrifyimng defeat which could be ours and of the overwhelming subjugation that we might have to bear.
Chief among the factors guiding the maturation of our thought has been the college which we have attended. How well we will acclimate ourselves to the world and its vast problems will be a reflection upon Dartmouth. How successfully we serve and how happy and contented we are in serving will, in large measure, be determined by the way in which we have been prepared on this New England plain. It seems to me that the best criterion we can establish in the evaluation of the college of our choice is a utilitarian one.
May we not ask—do we as graduating seniors represent a commodity that is truly needed in the world about us? Not merely that we are men with arms and hands which may be trained in the tools of war, nor organisms with a brain adapted only for the reception of commands—but men of courage and character and genuine worth. If we can face the question squarely and answer "yes" to such an interrogation, then great, indeed, will be the tribute which we pay to this institution. If, in this time of trouble, it can be demonstrated that a place and a function are to be filled by us, it will be a glorious answer to the endless debates on the validity and worth of a college education.
To analyze the problem, consider with me for a moment the role that the college has played—what it has actually done to prepare us for a twentieth century civilization. It has given us knowledge, guidance and friendship. These things we might well expect. It has, in the present crisis, geared its academic program to a war-time tempo; it has facilitated the departure of men who wished to join the fighting forces; it has actively attempted to make men think. These things, too, all colleges have at- tempted to offer. What can we find that is unique and specific? In Dartmouth's consistent and impressive record of service lies the answer—in its past and present attitudes—in its planning for the future. It has been said that Dartmouth College will continue to serve and guide men as long as is possible. No sacrifice will be avoided— nothing will stand in the way of the College's existence, its duties and obligations to its sons.
And how well has the attitude of the College been inculcated in the graduating classes? Only twice before in our long and proud history have seniors and their parents come to the steps of Dartmouth Hall for Class Day exercises in the month of May. They so assembled in 1777 when the spring semester was hastily ended so that the men of Dartmouth might go to the aid of the embattled troops facing Burgoyne above Ticonderoga. They so assembled in 1918 when the fate of a continent wavered perilously. And in 1942, the men of Dartmouth are responding again to the call of country, are following the tradition of class and college by leaping to the nation's need. Men of this class and of the class preceding ours have already died in freedom's cause, and more will join them.
It is possible that when major crises beset the world, the earth's inhabitants feel that this, their problem, is the world's greatest. Those seniors of 1777 envisioned no foe greater than the red-coated tyranny. In 1942, we, graduating seniors, see no foe greater than Nazi Germany astride Europe's Olympus with its satanic emblem of the twisted cross.
We, too, as those men of old, must go forth to the full defense of home and country. This we shall do well and ably—arising as we do from families who have lived and have died and have fought through a period of war—all of us educated in a college which has given us a rich taste of loyalty, of patriotism and of service. Our back- ground as defenders of a priceless heritage is unparalleled. To this defense we may go with supreme confidence that the system we are defending is a system worth defending. This we must do, if, in years hence, sons and daughters of Dartmouth men are to be privileged to attend institutions of higher learning such as we have attended. This we shall do so that when the battle is fought and won, Dartmouth College, which we have learned to love so well, may proceed on its path of teaching and guidance and may for many years continue to sow the Dartmouth Spirit in the hearts and minds of men.
