The Hanover Scene

Ahoy!

THE Dartmouth-Navy relationship, of nearly three years' standing, happily will be continued under the new NROTC program which replaces the present V-12 program in November. Most significant of all from the College's point of view is the fact that this new alliance will have some degree of permanence, carrying over into the postwar period and giving the College an active role in the training of reserve officers for the huge fleet which this country proposes to maintain. Hanover rather unanimously hoped for the privilege of participating in the Navy's enlarged training program, and the May 1 announcement that Dartmouth had been selected for one of the 25 new NROTC units produced local pleasure of equal unanimity.

One sometimes wonders just where landlocked Hanover got all the nautical spirit it has brought to the fore since the Naval Indoctrination School first arrived three years ago. In the lead article in this issue of the MAGAZINE the Connecticut River comes in for an orchid or two, historically speaking, but not even John Ledyard, the old steamboats, or the serpentine Connecticut itself can provide enough of a watery tradition to account for the World War II emergence of Dartmouth as a sea power. There's the old Dartmouth naval tradition in England, but for us that has steadily lost its meaning since the Revolution. The answer must lie somewhere else and when some discerning soul brings it to light we have a hunch that it will not be uncomplimentary to the United States Navy.

Times Change

MUCH has been written comparing oldtime conditions in our colleges with those of modern times—not always in commendation of the new. President Hopkins, however, in meeting with the alumni during the past year has occasionally stated the unqualified conviction of himself and of the Trustees that never under any circumstances at any time has Dartmouth been blessed with a faculty membership more willing, more able, or more adaptable to the needs of changing conditions than it has been in recent years. In this connection, for comparison, he has read an amusing transcript of a Trustee vote passed at the annual meeting of the Board in 1842:

Resolution offered by Mr. Marsh:

RESOLVED, that the Board of Trustees regard the members of the Faculty of the Institution as salary officers, and that the Board to some extent have a claim on their time and exertions for the benefit of the Institution, even out of their particular department, when called for by any occasional and special exigency, to administer instruction to others than the particular classes assigned to each, and the Trustees would affectionately entreat the respective members of the Faculty to unite as a band of brothers, especially in this time of unprecedented pecuniary distress, and divide the burden of such labbrs among them without expectation of further compensation.

Doing Nicely

IT is a lean day around the administrative offices when a questionnaire or an inquiry of some sort does not come in about the veterans who have returned to college. Ex-servicemen on the Dartmouth campus can hardly be said to be conspicuous just at present, but in rounding up some statistics for one of the aforementioned questionnaires from a New York paper we learned that there are 14 returned veterans enrolled this term, with the prospect of a rapidly increasing number from this time on. Three of these Dartmouth students are married and the average age of the whole group is 23 years 4 months, the youngest being 19 and the oldest 38. Eleven of the 14 veterans are resuming interrupted studies, while the remaining three are just beginning their college courses. Ten men in the group are attending college under the provisions of the G. I. Bill and four are here under the Vocational Rehabilitation program.

These were facts which could be produced without too much difficulty, but the questionnaires never stop there; they also want to know what G. I. Joe is thinking and how he is acting on the campus. The consensus at Dartmouth, at any rate, is that his grades are as good as, or better than, those of other students; that he is more mature and seeks advice more freely, having outlived the old fear of being called an apple-polisher; that he drops his veteran's attitude at once or at least during the first term; that he talks quite naturally of his war experiences; and that he is looked up to by the rest of the students on campus, if they happen to know he is a veteran. Any chance he ever had to introduce Service slang to the Dartmouth campus has long since been lost to the Old Salts from the fleet or the Leathernecks from the Pacific isles, who have unconsciously brought many a blush to the faces of Hanover's fair sex.

The state of affairs with regard to the returned veterans will probably change considerably as the number of such students grows, but for the time being the very inconspicuousness of ex-servicemen at Dartmouth is a good sign. Those who keep their ears to the G. I. ground have come full circle to the conclusion that what discharged veterans want most of all is to be treated just the way they always were, and Dartmouth men especially have been emphatic about what they hope to come back to.

Footnote

HAVING made so much of the early spring in last month's opening installment of The Hanover Scene, we feel honor bound to report that there was a 6-inch blizzard on May 10. We predicted that it would snow like hell next April—and were only eleven months out of the way.