The Astounding Record

PROBABLY MOST OF us affiliated with Dartmouth College are still gasping for breath in our amazement over the success of the Alumni Fund this year. It was pretty commonly assumed, when optimistic forecasters talked of a goal of $200,000, that such must be crazy. Didn't they know there's a war on? Wasn't it more sensible to look for a slump? Well, the answer is on the record and it cannot be gainsaid. The Fund got not only the $200,000 it hoped for, but something like $45,000 more than that; and the percentage of Dartmouth alumni contributing, instead of falling off. rose higher than ever.

If people are gasping for breath, however, it would be well to get over it with all speed and get the breath back. This isn't our last year. The year 1944 is coming on, and we've got a mark to shoot at now such as we never had before. It will be said that, as walking is "a series of interrupted falls" and as every wave has its trough to follow, we may not attain a similar success another year. But if we didn't it would not be discouraging, provided we still justified the confidence that set $200,000 as the appropriate goal. That sum represents the inter- est on a very tidy principal; and as we haven't any such endowment as that, but every need for the interest it would yield if we did have it, the duty remains to keep on raising it year by year to whatever extent is within our power. For 1943 we can rest on our oars, no doubt. But another year will come, and we know now what our oars can do when we ply them with a will.