1904

Our February announcement of Reunion Committee plans has been changed necessarily because IKES program for the year wouldn't permit time for such extra-curricular assignments. Ned Bartlett with his atomic knowledge has joined Sid and as these notes are written they are together at Niagara Falls planning civilian uses of atomic energy for a stimulating Reunion weekend at Hanover. Their program is complete already and you will have had their first communication before reading these lines—May 10th at Schraffts in Boston we join with '01-'02-'03-'05 in another five-class Reunion. It's an opportunity to make definite Reunion plans among ourselves and with the men of '03 and '05 who will be in Hanover for our Reunion weekend.

Rosie Hinman, civilian, advises a change of address March first to North Stratford, N. H., the good north country town where he was born just in time to join us in Hanover in the fall of 1900. The Hinman home is on the top of a hill commanding a fine view and providing exercise enough in return trips from the village to maintain the waistline he acquired by years of Army training. His return home increases the happiness of a host of New Hampshire Hinmans and the enjoyment of a large group of friends.

It's easy to verify the fact that one Lampee, Charles, was a Hanover Inn visitor, March 19 —as a matter of fact, here in front of me is the card which was posted on the Inn Board, seeing which, he discovered he was in the land of Webster, Dave Storrs, Lew Mead, etc. The nostalgia evidenced by his visits to the neighborhood of Fayerweather recalls the hospitality of two greats in 1901, Jack Andrews and Ben Bond, who lived next door to Squid and Jack, and were wont to give their freshman neighbors and visiting classmates, usually Tick Andrews, Jack's brother, Pen Mower and the writer, a chance at the weekly Sunday night rarebit stodged up as only a man with a Ben Bond waistline could do it. There was cheese, chafing dishes and tinpedlars wagons then but they are all gone now.

The following condensation of a column in the Grand Rapids Michigan Herald, February first, "Reflections of an Editor" by Frank M. Sparks, by his own admission Bowdoin 1900, will produce various stages of homesickness by its description of the small college of our time:

I'M WRITING THIS COLUMN for the special benefit of Dr. Jim Brotherhood who was graduated from Dartmouth College a century or two ago. The reason I'm dedicating this piece to him is because it will be necessary to give some credit to Dartmouth while the real college of his day and mine was Bowdoin. Those of us who attended the smaller colleges found there something which the great university cannot and never will have. Faculties of the great universities already know this and have sought to correct the fault.

Usually the smaller college is situated in some sleepy and pretty little town where the trees are abundant, the college is the big thing in the community and the campus is something in which to glory, a thing of real beauty and charm. Here the students are few enough so that every student knows every other student by his first name or his nickname.

MOST SMALLER COLLEGES are old. Bowdoin now is more than 150 years of age and Dartmouth is 28 years older. During those many years traditions have been built up which are passed on to each entering class and are preserved as something all but sacred. These traditions are a part of the student and even more a part of the old grad who probably has long since forgotten all he ever learned in his books and lectures but his college life lives on and on.

AND NOW COMES the part of this story which will please Jim Brotherhood. It was back in 1818 when the Legislature of New Hampshire sought to take over Dartmouth College. The case went to the U. S. Supreme Court where John Marshall was then Chief Justice. Daniel Webster, a graduate of Dartmouth, was representing his Alma Mater. In his argument he used one phrase which won the case, stirred John Marshall almost to tears and which has been quoted thousands of times since.

Said Webster: "It is, sir, as I have said, a small college—and yet there are those who love it."

Jimmy's Dartmouth enthusiasm has produced practical results for the College; the current catalogue (1940) lists one man, H. J. Stevens '88, residing in Grand Rapids before Brotherhood '04, but there are 27 between 1912 and 1939.

Watch for bulletins from Sid and Ned; treatises on plainless extraction from Squid; then we'll compare notes at Schraffts May 10 and plan for a real reunion July 19, 20, 21. In June 1939, 114 men, wives, children and grandchildren were present.

Secretary, Canaan Street Lodge, Canaan, N. H Treasurer, Morristown, N. J.