A Postwar Guarantee

THE TREASURER'S REPORT FOR 1942-43, disclosing the unexpectedly favorable outcome of the past fiscal year, will make satisfying reading for Dartmouth men. In a very real sense, the report of balanced books and of a quarter of a million dollars of income earmarked as a Postwar Reconversion Reserve is a matter of self-congratulation for the 12,279 alumni and friends of the College who contributed to the record-breaking 1943 Alumni Fund; for once again it was the Fund which was the keystone of the year's highly successful financial operations.

possiSpecial interest attaches to Mr. Edgerton's latest report because of the wartime abnormality of the period covered, both in enrollment and in semesters, and also because the year 1942-43 was the first involving contractual relations with the Navy. Nothing in the report, however, has more real significance or holds out greater promise for the future welfare of the College than does the newly established Postwar Reconversion Reserve. This fund looks forward to the day, at the war's close, when the presumable end of government training programs and the return to normal educational organization will create exigencies which will seriously handicap the institution not prepared to meet them. Along with its present all-out effort to help win the war, Dartmouth is looking ahead and planning for the educational responsibility and opportunity which will surely come with peace. It is vital that at that stage in its record of national service the College shall not be impeded in its chance of not only maintaining but increasing its leadership.

The Postwar Reconversion Reserve is one great guarantee that Dartmouth will be free to capitalize the unlimited opportunities of the period immediately after the war. That the 1943 Alumni Fund provided the bulk of the present reserve is especially appropriate; that ihe 194.4 Fund may enlarge it and the freedom which it implies is a fervent hope.