Members of the Board

The sixth in the series of biographical sketches of members of the Dartmouth Board of Trustees follows:

Dr. Arthur H. Ruggles 'O2

CONTINUOUSLY SINCE 1827 the family of Dr. Arthur Hiler Ruggles '02, one of Dartmouth's Alumni Trustees, has been closely connected with the College. The century-and-more-old affiliation had its start when the eminent psychiatrist's grandfather, Daniel Blaisdell 1827, became Treasurer of Dartmouth in 1835, to remain in that office for forty years; and it continued when his father, Edward Rush Ruggles '59, joined the Modern Language Department in 1866, later to become Chandler Professor of German. Dartmouth graduates in Dr. Ruggles' family now comprise four generations, his nephew, Daniel Blaisdell Jr. '21, and his son, Arthur Hiler Ruggles '37, being the latest to join the list which includes, besides the doctor's grandfather and father, his uncle, Alfred O. Blaisdell '53, and his two brothers, the late Daniel B. Ruggles '90 and Edward F. Ruggles '94.

An authority in his field of treatment of and research in nervous and mental diseases, Dr. Ruggles has received international as well as national recognition. In World War I when he served as division psychiatrist for the Second Division, AEF, and as consulting psychiatrist for the French and British governments, he was awarded the Croix de Guerre with Bronze Star for his work with mentally ill soldiers. Dr. Ruggles is a member and former president of the American Psychiatric Association; a member of the National Advisory Council on Research in Nervous and Mental Diseases, U. S. Public Health Service; a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; member and former president of the National Committee for Mental Hygiene, the New England Society of Psychiatry, and the Providence Medical Association; chairman of the Providence Council of Social Agencies; and member of the University Club, Agawam Hunt, and the Providence Art Club.

During his undergraduate years at Dartmouth, Dr. Ruggles was a Phi Beta Kappa student, manager of football, a member of Casque and Gauntlet and Delta Kappa Epsilon. Upon his graduation he continued his medical training at Dartmouth and at the Harvard Medical School from which he received his M.D. in 1906. He spent some months in Germany in special studies and interned at the Rhode Island Hospital. In 1909 he joined the staff of the Butler Hospital for mental and nervous diseases and in 1922 became Superintendent, a position which he has held at the Providence institution ever since.

One of the doctor's special interests has been the establishment of mental hygiene clinics in colleges to prevent nervous or mental maladjustments in students. He has written and lectured widely on the topic and in 1924 accepted an appointment as consultant in mental hygiene at Dartmouth where he was "adviser and co-operator in establishing psychiatric work." A year later he went to Yale to set up a fiveyear program of mental hygiene there and is still on the faculty as consultant in mental hygiene and psychiatry. He has also lectured at Brown in the Department of Psychology and was the recipient in 1929 of an honorary Doctorate of Science from the university. Dartmouth awarded him an honorary M.A. in 1911 and an honorary Sc.D. in 1926.

Dr. Ruggles has always been active in Dartmouth alumni affairs. Before his election in 1936 to his present post of Alumni Trustee, he was from 1931 to 1936 a member of the Alumni Council and was president of the Rhode Island Dartmouth Association from 1924 to 1927. He is chairman of the Trustees' Committee on Degrees.

Born in Hanover on Jan. 26, 1881, Dr. Ruggles was married in Manchester, N. H., in 1914 to Hazel Wheeler who died a few years ago. Besides his son Arthur, now a lieutenant in the Antiaircraft division of the U. S. Army, Dr. Ruggles has a daughter, Ann, a graduate of Smith, now a lieutenant (jg) in the WAVES