His Life Seemed Clear
JIM CAME FROM A LARGE UNIVERSITY. He transferred to Dartmouth July 1 as a Navy student under the College Training Program.
Because the Navy requires its V-12 trainees to complete one year of several sciences, Jim found himself assigned to sections in physics, graphics, and mathe- matics with class and laboratory contact hours in these three sciences reaching the tidy total of 17 hours per week. This reckoning is equivalent to 12 solid semester hours. The minimum academic program for V-12 trainees is 18 semester hours. So Jim filled out with two elective courses—History and English.
What Jim found himself doing, academically speaking, is outlined fully to indicate that education is receiving its full share of attention under the Navy's new officer-procurement program. If undergraduates in normal times were required to tackle a schedule of comparably exacting nature to Jim's courses, and those of 2,000 fellow-trainees on Hanover Plain, they would howl in aggrieved protest. They might even decline to attend such an institution.
Although Jim was headed for a Physical Ed. major in his university he found nothing along that line on his schedule unless it was calisthenics at 6 A.M., marching to meals, daily inspection, and rugged physical training daily.
It is, of course, brand new to Jim. He had received scant warning of what he would be up against. After the first shock he is digging in, determined to make good in spite of incomplete preparation for such exacting studies. If he fails one subject he is liable to immediate sea duty.
Jim didn't know a thing about Dartmouth. At first it was fun to swagger in a hick town and whistle at the local girls. He joined a group at the Senior Fence and watched a red-hot softball game Great white clouds floated above Baker Tower in a blue sky Bells played a tune and then struck Navy time. .... Jim watched a company of Marines stride past singing their marching song "From the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli." .... Already their shoulders were back, their cadence good, the instructors' calls beating out a rhythm, and Jim liked it even if they were Marines Pulling his sailor cap over an eye he squinted at the brilliant whiteness of Dartmouth Row and for a moment lost himself in admiration of lofty arched elms Everywhere he saw fresh greenness, trim substantial buildings, everywhere men of his own age marching, gathered in groups, shouts from the ballplayers, commands to the uniformed lines, men with notebooks hurrying to class .... life, movement, vigor,,purpose In the evening, during study hour, he looked from his win- dow down Tuck Drive and saw a great orange sunset behind Vermont hills.
Then Jim heard the President of the College in the Bema. In a twilight silence, solemn as a hunter learns to love in the deep woods, a great throng joined in hymns and listened to a stirring address by the foremost leader of liberal education in America.
Swinging in step with his company back from the Bema across the end of the campus Jim felt better. His life for the first time seemed clear. THE COLLEGE GROWS STRONGER
WHAT HAS ALL THIS GOT TO DO WITH DARTMOUTH? Sometimes alumni have inquired: "Has the College changed? Is it different?" They should see the old place now.
Teachers of art are teaching navigation and teachers of classics are teaching physics. Meanwhile professors o£ physics are teaching more physics to more students than had previously, in their worst dreams, seemed feasible. Jim and his friends, 2,000 strong, are earnestly seeking an education. They are also discovering Dartmouth.
During the past year more than 5,000 student officers in the Indoctrination School "graduated from Dartmouth." "Where did you train?" they are asked. "At Dartmouth." And with this new crop, so strong in numbers, so sturdy in body, so determined in spirit, and so representative of American youth, the College opens its halls and shares its best.
All along, we have had just one thing most in mind. The College GrowsStronger. In the midst of bitter, cruel, desperate war, men have insisted that one of the things they are fighting for is Dartmouth College. There are 6,262 of them in uniform. All the rest of us feel the same way. Gifts to the Alumni Fund this year total more than $245,300 from 12,265 contributors. This is truly a remarkable and spectacular achievement.
Against adversity, The College Grows Stronger. For Dartmouth, as for students in uniform, life and the future seem clear. THE EDITOR
