THE 50-YEAR MESSAGE
Report from the Class of 1894 at Its 50th Reunion
IT is SAID that once a visitor to a monastery of the Carmelite order was told that the Carmelites were not intellectual like the Benedictines nor given to kind deeds like the Franciscans, but were noted for their humility. "We beat the world in humility," said the Carmelite monk. Well, at this moment the Class of '94 makes no claim to beating the world in humility.
First, we will boast a little about our size. We graduated 86 men, a number which had not been equaled since 1878, 16 years, and had not been surpassed since 1873, 21 years. We were 113 at the time of entrance. By reason of various subtractions, transfers and additions the number of non-graduates accredited to us in the General Catalogue is 24, which makes a total of 110 names that are on our class roll. In spite of repeated efforts to enlist their interest only about six of these nongraduates have seemed to care to continue their relationship with the class, and, therefore, in further statistics that follow, in order not to make a distinction between the interested non-graduates and those not interested, the figure of 86, the number of graduates, will be used as our basis.
Next, let us boast of our good health and length of life. At our aoth Reunion, we had lost only two men by death and that year we had 70 men present out of our total of 84. At the time of our 25th Reunion, we had lost only three. Only five died previous to our 30th Reunion. Now at our 50th we have 48 living graduates or 55.8%, and of these we have present 36, or 75%, with three non-graduates for good measure. We are assured by Statistical Secretary Comstock and by Miss Ford, the Alumni Recorder, that this is something of a record. Mr. Comstock doubts "if any class of our time can surpass it." I have looked up the figures of the nine classes preceding ours and only three of these classes ('87, '91, and '93) have a percentage of living graduates above 50, and the highest of these is 51.5.
Now the man who sits in the seat of the scornful, particularly if he comes from a nearby class, may allege that this longevity record is more or less accidental. Not so; it is solely due to rigid adherence to the laws of health!
Attendance of the alumni at Dartmouth commencements has been steadily increasing. The class reunions have become larger and larger. The interest in this getting together has been steadily mounting. Some people would say that this was due to the increasing size of classes and also to the increased facilities here at the College for taking care of returning alumni. However, the discerning student of such events will undoubtedly give the verdict that nothing less than the Class of 1894 Cup has been the spark plug for this remarkable development. It was in the year 1909 at its 15th Reunion that the class saw this opportunity for serving the College, and under the leadership of Bertrand A. Smalley the money was raised and the cup given, to be awarded each year to that class which had the largest percentage of living graduates at its reunion. The first chance the class had to win its own cup was in 1914 when we observed our 20th. How hard we worked, how much postage we used, what amount of talking we did, what stone we didn't leave unturned in order that that particular year we might be awarded our cup. However, we took our defeat in good part and Mr. Smalley in our behalf presented the cup to the Class of 1864 The story with regard to this Cup may be completed by saying that in 1919 we again had to compete with the invincible Class of 1864 and it was not until 1934 at our 40th that we were able to win our own Cup.
Recently a movement has started among later classes to make the 25 th Reunion memorable by handing to the College a substantial memorial gift. One class has taken real satisfaction in securing the sum of $20,500, and now $25,000 is being thought of as a reasonable goal for other classes. When the Class of '94 had its 25th Reunion it presented to the College the sum of $25,664 as a scholarship fund, which was the form that the administration then desired. It interests us a little that present day classes which graduated about three times as many men as we, are now aiming at the same sum we were able to raise, under the leadership of that master strategist, M. B. Jones. Cast your bread upon the waters and it will return to you, perhaps in 25 years.
The Twentieth Century model for a class in relation to its secretary is to change every five years. The Class of 1899 has been a superb example of the success of this plan. It is all the more to the credit, therefore, of our class that it has been long suffering enough to endure one secretary for the entire fifty years. I conceive that when some impartial man writes the full record this will be regarded as one of its most marked claims to a place in the Hall of Fame. The bystander will comment, "How could they stand it to have one man writing to them, appealing to them, cajoling them, almost coercing them, sometimes well-nigh yelling at them, for a period of half a century." But so far as this Secretary is concerned, I suspect that if and when a tablet is placed on the house where he was born in Marlboro, New Hampshire (which Bud Lyon passes on his frequent trips between Boston and Peru, Vermont) the only inscription will be "Here was born the Secretary of the Class of '94 of Dartmouth College." "How simple but how satisfactory," people will say, as the Boston woman said when she mistook a milestone for a gravestone and thought that the inscription "1 M. from Boston" meant "I'm from Boston."
Lest a recital of our good deeds becomes tedious let me turn aside for a minute to examine how such a class came to be. What was the pit from which we were digged? Well, no less than 39, or almost 44%, came from the State of New Hampshire. We already had "the granite of New Hampshire in our muscles and our brains," before we came to Dartmouth, albeit we got much more of it here. For fear that even with such numbers New Hampshire might need help, it was arranged that its sister state of Vermont should send 18 men. You remember that Robert Frost in his poem says of New Hampshire,
"She is one of the two best states in the Union, Vermont's the other;"
But Massachusetts came to the help of New Hampshire and Vermont with 12. Maine followed with eight and Rhode Island with two. The final result was that all but seven members of the Class, who followed through to graduation, were admitted from New England, or about 98%. The other states should have their honor here. New York sent three; California, one; Nebraska, one; Mississippi, one; and Illinois, one. To expect a group so overwhelmingly from New England forthwith to depart in major numbers to other sections of the country for their life work was undoubtedly too much. However, a third of us have done most if not all of their life work outside New England, and in New England Massachusetts has taken the place of New Hampshire in providing the largest number of residents—indeed just half of the 54 men who stayed in New England have been in Massachusetts. Outside New England New York has had the largest number, 13; California following with five; District of Columbia, four; Colorado, Indiana and Michigan, two each; Nebraska, Mississippi, Florida, and Illinois, one each
Where a group of men have been so usefully and successfully engaged, one hesitates to speak of individuals. Yet it may be fair to refer to the contribution which '94 has made to the State of New Hampshire through Chief Justice John Allen, Governor John Bartlett, Congressman Sherman Burroughs, and Dwight Hall for ten years Chairman of the Republican State Committee and a most influential figure in New Hampshire politics. One of New England's most essential public utilities, the New England Telephone and Telegraph Company, was headed for 15 years by a '94 man, Matt B. Jones. Two of New England's first-rate papers have been edited by Maurice Sherman and Philip Marden, the latter of whom found time to serve the College ten years as a Trustee. In this connection attention may be called to the fact that four men of the class have served on the Dartmouth Alumni Council, namely, Adams, Marden, Sherman, and Townsend. Doubtless, at the head of our teachers, we ought to place our class valedictorian, who for 43 years was a member of the Dartmouth faculty, Ashley Kingsley Hardy. If anyone asks how many of the class have been named in Who's Who inAmerica the answer is 12. Or how many have been given honorary degrees by the College, six; three of whom were also given degrees by other institutions. Three other men have been given honorary degrees by other institutions, making the honorary degree list nine in all. But perhaps more significant is the fact that 42 members of the class earned advanced degrees after leaving College, in law, in medicine, in engineering, in theology, in education, and in dentistry.
I happened once to be with a group of men of which William Jewett Tucker was the most distinguished member and another of the group was felicitating him in the warmest way upon what he had done for Dartmouth College. Dr. Tucker replied, with his usual modesty, "Well, a man ought to do something with the Dartmouth spirit behind him." So I say that during the years there has developed a certain '94 spirit which perhaps has been the most marked characteristic of our class
It is my impression from an intimate knowledge of what the men have written and how they have seemed to feel, that their relationship to the Class of '94 has .been a source of rare delight, satisfaction, : and encouragement to the members of the class as a whole, and very few have not participated in these feelings. I do not know by whom this has been better expressed than by one of our men who left us rather early and who had attained a place of distinction in spite of severe handicaps. Alfred Bartlett once wrote this: "I think we men regard ourselves as brothers in one large family, and I am sure it makes us feel that the world is a much less lonely place."
I shall now speak of a supreme event in the life of the class which ought to have come earlier in this message if chronology was to be observed. It occurred at the 10th Reunion. I will quote a contemporary account:
One of the events that happened that no one of us who was there will ever forget is the few minutes that President Tucker spent with us on Tuesday afternoon. It would have been enough if he had just come in and shaken hands with us, and bidden us God-speed as Dartmouth men, but no one dreamed that he was coming in to say the thing which he did say. I have asked Henry Hurd to give the President's words as he remembers them and here is what Henry has sent me:
"At the close of the informal chat with the class, President Tucker rose and said that before leaving, he wished to express his appreciation of the value of the class to the administration of the College during his first year as President. He also stated, if I remember rightly, that if he had known before he came, the kind of work he was accepting, he would have further considered and might not have come to Dartmouth as president. He then added that the size, strength, scholarship, character and personnel of the class made it a steadying force in the undergraduate life of the College and an upholding and sustaining power to the administration. It seemed to be his feeling that '94 influenced the undergraduate life and practically shaped it during the first year of the transition period, gave it a tone of responsibility and sobriety, and thus reinforced the administration at a time when it had many outside questions to deal with."
What '94 man did not walk more proudly after that? Indeed if nothing else had happened in the history of '94, than to have been the first class that graduated under William Jewett Tucker, this would have sufficed.
I count that 28 out of our 49 living members may be said to be "retired." That is, we have given up in great part the occupations that kept us busy up to 70 years of age. Dr. Tucker used to speak of this as "the new reservation of time." He seemed to think that the decade between 70 and 80 ought to be one of the most interesting and satisfying periods of a man's life, and if you want to find this belief illustrated, read chapter ten of his own autobiography, the book entitled MyGeneration. To quote Dr. Tucker's exact words. "I cannot see why this reserved decade should not contribute as much to the tone of society, and to many of its higher interests, as any previous decade." If I understand aright the feeling of the Class of 1894, this is the way in which we will face the future. We pledge anew our loyalty to the College, and we will serve it in any way we can. however, the best way in which we can serve it will be by showing in some degree at least that we are a group of men to whom the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson are congenial:
"As the bird trims her to the gale I trim myself to the storm of time, I man the rudder, reef the sail, Obey the voice at eve obeyed at prime: 'Lowly faithful, banish fear Right onward drive unharmed; The port, well worth the cruise, is near And every wave is charmed."
After our 50th year we do not mean to break up as a class. We expect to continue our five-year reunions and our fall roundups and to hear from each other month by month in the columns of the ALUMNI MAGAZINE. AS we think over the splendid years that we have been together, we cannot say anything less than this:
"With such a comrade, such a friend I fain would walk till journey's end Through summer sunshine, winter rain And then? 'Farewell, we shall meet again.' "
A HAPPY QUARTET of 1894 notables photographed on the Hanover Inn corner during the Fifty-Year Class Reunion on June 16-17. Left to right, they are Maurice S. Sherman, editor and publisher of "The Hartford (Conn.) Courant"; John E. Allen, Chief Justice of the New Hampshire Supreme Court; Rev. Charles C. Merrill, class secretary; and Philip S. Marden, president of the Courier-Citizen Printing Co. and former Dartmouth Trustee.
MEMBERS OF 1894, AT THEIR 50TH REUNION, DISPLAY THEIR UNUSUAL CLASS STRENGTH ON THE STEPS OF WILSON HALL
HE DIDN'T MAKE IT and gets a muddy bath. The Commando Course water hole (see next page) provides many a student laugh.
CLASS SECRETARY
Dr. Merrill's message on behalf of the Fifty-Year Class was delivered at a class gathering at the President's House on June 17. The version printed here has been somewhat condensed.
