LORD AND GILE HALLS
Dormitories Bear Tribute to Two Former Trustees
IN 1821 NATHAN LORD, a graduate of Bowdoin and then a minister at Amherst, N. H., was elected a Trustee of Dartmouth. In 1828 he became President, serving in that capacity until 1863. In 1869 his grandson, John King Lord, began his service upon the faculty, which continued until 1916. He was then elected a Trustee and remained in that office until his death in 1926. In 1911 his son, Dr. Frederic Pomeroy Lord, was made Professor of Anatomy, a position which he still holds. Thus for a period which has now lasted for 123 years (except for an interregnum of 6 years) some member of the Lord family has been active in the service of the College.
John King Lord was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, on Oct. 21, 1848, the grandson of Nathan Lord by his oldest son, who was then just beginning his service as a clergyman. The father died in one of the periodic cholera epidemics of the times when the child was eight months old, and John K. was brought up by his mother at her native town of Hardwick, Vt. His preparatory work was done at Montpelier and he was graduated from Dartmouth in 1868. After a year of teaching at Appleton Academy, New Ipswich, N. H., he was called back in 1869 to his college as tutor, becoming successively Associate Professor and Daniel Webster Professor of Latin, serving 47 years until his resignation in 1916. He was then made a Trustee and continued in that capacity until his death in 1926. In the interregnum between the terms of President Bartlett and Tucker, 1892-1893, he was Acting President and he came very close to election as President in 1909.
In the early years of his service Professor Lord was energetic, not only in his teaching duties, but in the management of discipline, and so efficient was he in that respect that his popularity among the undergraduates was not great. He was regarded as too much of a martinet. In the restless times of President Bartlett he was a faculty leader in the opposition to the college executive and one of the two men (Professor Arthur Sherburne Hardy was the other) whom the President was especially anxious to remove. In the more peaceful years which followed he rose to his full stature as a really great teacher, as well as one of the most able and most serviceable assistants of Dr. Tucker in the work of remaking the College.
It was as a teacher that his genius most shone forth. Never lax or careless, idleness and inattention on the part of the student were not tolerated. But his wide learning, his appreciation of good work when he encountered it, his understanding of successful class management—when to be rigid and when to laugh—and above all his assumption of the whole task of the teacher of Latin, marked him out as an exceptional man. Many students there must have been who, like the writer, after having been exposed for many years to the continuous grammatical drill (perhaps necessary, but culminatingly deadening) of a variety of teachers of Latin, found for the first time under "Johnnie K." that grandeur of thought and beauty of expression were present in the works of the writers of old which, up to then, had seemed to him to be merely the agents of an irksome task. Then, if another personal note be pardoned, when the writer some 42 years ago first took his seat upon the faculty (a race of intellectual giants its members then seemed to him in his unsophisticated innocence; giants which in the faculty of today, of which he comes very near being the senior member, do not, alas, seem to have their exact counterparts), while a number of these teachers were men of marked and even exceptional clarity of thought and fluency and ease of expression—highly effective as debaters—still in these respects Professor Lord equalled or surpassed them all, while, in addition, he never resorted to facile trickery, in argument he was always fair, he met opposition candidly, squarely and without indirection, and, if defeated, he cherished no rancor, but was content to abide by the result.
JOHN MARTIN GII.E was born in Pembroke, N. H., on March 8, 1864. He prepared for college at Pembroke Academy, was graduated from Dartmouth in 1887 and from the Dartmouth Medical School in 1891. For a time he was Assistant Superintendent of the State Hospital at Tewksbury, Mass., but in 1896 he came to Hanover to supply the place in the medical forces of the community left vacant by the death of Dr. Carlton P. Frost. He was at that time made Professor of the Practice of Medicine in the Medical School, later, upon the death of Dr. Smith in 1910, taking over the chair of surgery and the deanship. These positions he retained until his death on July 15, 1925.
The Mary Hitchcock Memorial Hospital had been opened three years before Dr. Gile's advent to Hanover. It was a struggling institution, considered by many to be over-large for the community it was to serve, with no endowment and with an uncertain future. Without depreciating the work of others, it can be said that in large part Dr. Gile made the institution. His skill as a surgeon soon became apparent. Hanover has always been the surgical center of the upper Connecticut valley, and Dr. Gile fitted admirably into the position which was thus opened for him. A portion of his cases came to the hospital for operations, but those were the days when hospitals were regarded with distrust and many of his patients demanded that the work should be done in their own homes. And so Dr. Gile was endlessly on the road—by train, by team, in later days by the automobile—ever busy in the most exhausting type of physical and mental strain. Particularly exacting were the demands upon him in the war period when other surgeons had departed for military service leaving him almost singlehanded to supply the wants of a wide region. It was, in fact, a strain which eventually was to cause his death.
Dr. Gile was interested in politics, but had little time to devote to such side issues. It is probable that he had political ambitions which he hoped to realize in the years of his retirement but that time never came. His only political office was that of a member of the Governor's Council, under Governor Bass, from 1911 to 1913.
Gifted as was Dr. Gile as a surgeon, his greatest hold upon others came from his personality. His mentality was remarkably clear and logical and he was master of the art of effective presentation. As an executive he was quick, decisive and accurate. He had many interests and because he liked people he made their interests his own. People liked him and his effectiveness both as a surgeon and as a man was increased by the fact that in his contacts with others he never had to overcome any initial feeling of distrust. Although not soft, he was sympathetic with others. He was public spirited and, despite his busy life, ready at all times to do more than his share in the work of the community. Gradually he had accumulated a following of friends, embracing practically everyone in Hanover and extending to an astonishingly large proportion of the inhabitants of the north country, who held him in the most sincere affection.
He became a Trustee in 1913 and soon proved himself to be a most valuable addition to the Board. His sound sense and good judgment were a source of reliance to successive Presidents, all the more important because he lived in Hanover and was therefore more available for immediate consultation than were other members of the Board. In periods of crisis his was a leading voice in the settlement of the issues involved. His love of the out-of-doors and his acquaintance with things of nature made his opinions especially important in the perplexing problems of the College Grant, and the satisfactory settlement of, that problem, with a yield to the College far larger than anyone in previous years had dared to hope, was largely his work. His death, premature as it seemed to all, was a stunning loss to the whole north country and not least to the College.
The group of three dormitories discussed in this and a previous article—Streeter, Lord and Gile Halls—together accommodate 256 students and are valued at $415,000.
Gile Hall (left) and Lord Hall (right) form a dormitory unit with Streeter Hall in the middle.
PROF. JOHN KING LORD '68
DR. JOHN MARTIN GILE '87
Continuing Professor Richardson's series on Dartmouth graduates and benefactors whose names are memorialized by present College buildings.
