An Alumni College

PRES. HOPKINS DEFINES DARTMOUTH THUS AT CLASS OF 1945 SING OUT

THE CLASS OF 1945, most of whose members in the civilian College or Navy V-12 Unit left Hanover at the end of the Winter Term last month, gathered for a last time on Sunday afternoon, February 13, for an informal Sing Out at which President Hopkins spoke briefly. Sixty-five members of the class present at the ceremony in the Richard Hovey Grill represented only a small fraction of the 734 men who started off in freshman year.

In his talk President Hopkins complimented the class upon its organization and the steps taken to maintain its cohesion in these disrupted times. He reviewed the periods of war crisis which other Dartmouth classes have weathered in the long history of the College and declared that undergraduates of today were not entitled to any belief that theirs was a harder or more sacrificial lot than that of their forebears.

"Many persons are now predicting that college education will be drastically changed after the war," President Hopkins said. "I cannot say what will happen elsewhere, but so far as Dartmouth is concerned, the College to which you will come back will still retain the values which generations of Dartmouth men have found here and which most of the men now in service seem to want retained. Changes will of course be made, because change has always characterized the growth of the College, but we shall certainly do nothing drastic unless it is the will of the Dartmouth men now in service. Dartmouth is an 'alumni college,' and while we officers of instruction and administration have our special task to fulfill, the character of the College has always been shaped by its graduates. Prohibition is an example of the folly of making drastic change when the persons really concerned are not here to make their wishes effective. Dartmouth does not contemplate making any such mistake."

President Hopkins wished the members of the class God speed and looked ahead to the day after the war when all classes might reassemble in Hanover for a giant reunion and reaffirmation of loyalty to the College.

Of the 734 original members of the Class of 1945, 583 have already left Hanover for service in the armed forces. The 151 members still at Dartmouth last term included 76 Navy trainees, 30 Marine trainees, and 45 civilians. Only a handful of civilians and a few Marines retained in the V-12 program for an extra term will be back in March.