Prof. C. A. Proctor Retires

Noted Physicist Served on Faculty 38 Years

ON SEPTEMBER 15, Charles A. Proctor '00, well-known Professor of Physics at Dartmouth and one of the outstanding ski officials of the country, resigned from his teaching duties at the College. His retirement, after 38 years on the faculty, occurred on his 67th birthday and was voluntarily chosen three years before the compulsory retirement age of 70.

His resignation brings to a close his family's unique four-generation service on the College faculty which started in 1810 with his great-grandfather, Ebenezer Adams 1791, Professor of Learned Languages and of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy until 1833, and included his grandfather, Ira Young 1828, Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy; his father, John C. Proctor '64, Professor of Greek; his uncle, Charles A. Young '53, for a short time Professor of Astronomy at the Thayer School; and his brother, Dr. John H. Proctor '91, who instructed in mathematics before receiving his M.D.

Coming from an ancestral and immediate background so filled with men of science and teachers, Professor Proctor, it might be assumed, would specialize in being a scholar, channeling his activities in the directions of research and teaching. Though he is a physicist of note and a wise and inspiring teacher, he is perhaps much better known generally as an authority on skiing he has been called by a British expert, "The Father of American Skiing" and as an expert amateur ornithologist and accomplished photographer whose camera studies of birds, frequently exhibited, are the envy of other camera naturalists who are well aware of the skill and patience their making entailed.

Professor Proctor was born in Hanover, N. H., on September 15, 1878. His father, John C. Proctor, died at the early age of 39 but his mother lived to be 90 years of age. The family home stood on the site of the present Tuck School and, after the death of Professor Proctor's father, became the home, as well of various college undergraduates, perhaps the most distinguished of whom was the future President of Dartmouth, Ernest M. Hopkins '01, friend and roommate of Professor Proctor.

Following a pleasant childhood passed in Hanover and attending the Hanover schools, Professor Proctor entered Worcester Academy, which President Hopkins also attended, to prepare for Dartmouth where he enrolled at seventeen years of age in the class of 1900. At Dartmouth he continued a varied and successful career in athletics which had its start at the academy. Though only 165 pounds in weight, he soon became one of the College's star football players and athletes. He was considered a "superlative punter" and in the Yale game of 1899 "did excellent work, bucking with a force almost inconceivable for a man of his weight." But, though the young undergraduate received his letter in football, his tennis was even better. He got his first chance to demonstrate his skill on the courts when he went to the University of Chicago for graduate work on a Parker Fellowship from Dartmouth following his graduation with an A.B. degree and a Phi Beta Kappa key from the College.

In Chicago he not only became proficient in tennis, being runner-up in the Western Intercollegiate Championship matches, but also worked as research assistant with the first American scientists to receive the Nobel Prize, Albert Abraham Michelson. Professor Proctor left Chicago

to become instructor in physics at the University of Missouri where he stayed from 1903 to 1907 when he was called to Dartmouth. He joined the faculty as Assistant Professor of Mathematics and was named Professor of Physics in 1918. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1909

Professor Proctor found the Hanover housing situation almost as difficult in 1907 as it is now. He solved it by building his own house, doing a good deal of the work himself, where he and his wife, Alice Howard (Nancrede), whom he married in 1904, and their small son, Charles N. Proctor (Class of 1929) settled down for a permanent stay in Hanover. The family was later increased by the arrival of John Carroll Proctor who graduated from Dartmouth with the Class of 1936.

Winter sports immediately became a new interest of Professor Proctor's, with snowshoeing, which had been the leading winter outdoor recreation in Hanover, in his case as in others, giving place to skiing. He developed an expert knowledge of the sport, not so much as a performer but as a student of its rules, regulations and technique. His knowledge increased as he coached his son, Charles, who while he was a member of the Dartmouth class of 1929, skied in the Olympics under his father's tutelage. In his new avocation as a ski official, Professor Proctor's vocation of teaching physics was put to use in planning the Dartmouth ski jump.

Because of his thorough understanding of the rules of the sport, Professor Proctor was named chairman of the Olympic Games Ski Committee at Lake Placid in 1933; served as director of officials at the Dartmouth Carnivals; was chairman of the Board of Trustees of the DOC; was made an honorary member of the Ski Club of Great Britain, a distinguished honor as the Club had only 25 honorary members at the time he was appointed; was official manager of the U. S. Olympic ski team and served as chief timer for both the 18 and 50-kilometer ski races. His task as chairman of the Olympic Games Ski Committee was to direct the committee's work in selecting and training members of the U. S. ski team in preparation for the 1932 games. He was one of the founders of the Intercollegiate Ski Association; and was one of the leaders in codifying the regulations for judging ski jumping.

Besides his great interest in skiing, photography, and ornithology, Professor Proctor enjoys a good game of golf.

In his undergraduate years at Dartmouth, Professor Proctor was a Deke, a member of Sphinx, Phi Beta Kappa, and Sigma Xi. He has travelled abroad and held the rank of Captain during the first World War when he was engaged in the activities of the Science and Research Division of the Signal Corps Air Service. He has also been associated with the Dartmouth Eye Institute in research on retinas.

PROF. CHARLES A. PROCTOR 'OO