The 45-Year Address
NEARLY half a century has passed since the classes of nineteen-hundred three, four, and five, now participating in this reunion, first became members of the Dartmouth family. Many of the changes which the years have brought are conspicuous. Of course, we as individuals are just as good men as we ever were, except perhaps for a little arthritis, arterial sclerosis, baldness, coronary impairment, dermatological degeneration, and so on through the whole geriatric alphabet. But though our bodies may be a little battered, our spirit is still strong, in spite of the turmoil and strain of these years of world disruption
No less conspicuous than the changes time has wrought in us as individuals have been the changes in the physical plant of the College, and in the town itself. Hanover at the beginning of the century was very.different from the Hanover of today. Approximately three out of four of the buildings that surround the campus have been built since 1900. Only a few of the outlying college buildings had then been constructed. Automobiles were seldom seen. Passengers for Hanover were conveyed up the steep ascent from the Norwich station in a stage coach usually driven by old "Dud" who helpfully added to the energy of his horses the power of his profanity.
The recitation halls and dormitories were less pretentious than those of the present, but they were adequate, equipped with hot and cold running water and electricity. We enjoyed most of the comforts that any young animals need.
Around the campus, on the opening evenings of a new college year, songs and cheers now long forgotten were heard. Who of us will not always remember the joyful rhythm of the old Type Hitchcock song?—"Who've elected, who've elected Who've elected Type, Type, Type, Type," and so on.
The students who marched around the campus singing this gleeful chant were proclaiming that they had elected Type Hitchcock's course in geology, open supposedly only to upperclassmen. The joyfulness of the singers was derived from the fact that it was the biggest cinch course in college, and rumor had it that Type had never flunked a student. Every drone in college skilfully chose his electives so that he could take geology with "Type". I ought to know. I took more than one of his courses. And the College pulled a raw deal on me in Geology II. They switched the course from Type to "Cheerful Idiot" Richardson, who made us work. That was not Leon Burr Richardson of notable achievements in the fields of chemistry, history and humor. Someone dubbed him "Cheerless" Richardson just to distinguish him from the other Richardson. He never really earned his title as the other man did.....
"Type" Hitchcock in our time was the senior member of the regular faculty. He had graduated from Amherst nearly fifty years before, and had become a venerable scholar of national reputation. It was said that although his courses were unbelievably easy, his students retained more of what they learned than they remembered from most of the other subjects they studied. This may be so. Probably there is not a man who studied geology forty-five years ago who today cannot tell the difference between a mountain and a river. This is more than has been remembered from some other contemporary courses.
"Type" was a man of discretion as well as learning. Although his keen eyes could detect minute traces of any mineral in a rock specimen, they could on occasion be blind to a keg of beer perched in the back of the large conveyance which carried us through the countryside to observe at first hand glacial moraines, terraces, potholes, and eskers
Reminiscence is a cherished part of every reunion, whether the reunion comes after an interval of five years or forty-five years, and the temptation to go on interminably is strong. But perhaps we should endeavor to discover what were the most enduring values we gained from our years in Hanover. After all, a college course is supposed to provide some mental and moral growth as well as to enrich the memory with happy recollections of youth.
I am sure that many will join me in affirming that the greatest inspiration and the strongest influence in life which has endured since college days came from the example and the teachings of William Jewett Tucker. President Tucker's sound moral philosophy, his Christian ethics, his human understanding, as expressed in his Sunday chapel talks and other addresses, could not fail to make a deep impression on any student who did not close his ears. Dr. Tucker seemed to us a saintly man, a very wise man, apart from all that was commonplace, but none the less practical and broad-minded. The men who attended Dartmouth during his administration felt toward him a reverent love and respect which did not diminish with the years. Although his actual words may have been forgotten, his precepts and principles became an enduring part of the fibre of great numbers who came under his influence
(Here Mr. Robinson read a few passagesfrom Dr. Tucker's chapel talks.)
The earnestness and effectiveness with which Dr. Tucker assumed the burden of the mental and moral quickening of the students of his day is revealed in the foregoing quotations. Many of his precepts seem even more vital today that when he first pronounced them.
With our press, our magazines, and our air waves filled with widely conflicting views on endless subjects of paramount importance, and with advocates of every kind of sociological and political doctrine, both good and bad, demanding the right of free speech, it is vitally necessary that we cultivate and endeavor to disseminate the ability to know what is true and what is false. It seems to me that the right of free speech can safely be justified only on one of two assumptions: one, that the free speech be truthful speech, or two, that the listeners be able to distinguish between the true and the false. It is too much to hope that the first ever will become a reality, and it therefore becomes the burden of every good educational force to raise the mass intelligence to a level at which it is capable of distinguishing between the false and the true. Otherwise an eloquent purveyor of false doctrine may force his leadership on the people with consequent disaster to the people. We have seen this happen. Hearing all the facts on all sides of a question does not necessarily mean that the hearer is qualified to arrive at a sound conclusion. We are all familiar with the words of one of our best radio programs, "Hear both sides of the question and make up your own minds." But to arrive at false conclusions, even after listening to both sides, is worse than to remain indecisive. The burden of the College today in the effort to point the way to truth to the student body, and to stimulate its members to appreciate the need for national and world-wide recognition of truth, is greater than it ever has been before.
But I was not invited to come here to emphasize the burdens of the College. The College is already conscious of enough burdens. And is is bearing them well. We know how well they were borne under the Tucker administration. And most of us have known more or less intimately the really magnificent advances made by the College during the long and wise leadership of Ernest Martin Hopkins. Dr. Hopkins would, I think, gladly assert that he was a disciple of Dr. Tucker. As such, he was able to carry through his own administration the splendid spirit of his predecessor and add to it the great values from his own personality and initiative.
Dr. Tucker, in his later years, referred to the College of that day as the New Dartmouth. The New Dartmouth of yesterday has become the old Dartmouth of today, and the New Dartmouth of Dr. Hopkins will be superseded by the Newer Dartmouth of tomorrow. In the competent hands of President Dickey, who already has taken on the proportions of greatness with both the student body and the alumni, the College will go on to greater heights. Dartmouth has been fortunate in having three such presidents over the past fifty or sixty years, for without a great leader, an institution cannot be great.
The devoted and talented faculty, which serves Dartmouth so well, is deserving of unstinted appreciation from the alumni.
And the College furthermore has been fortunate in that the staff of administrative officers has included men of large caliber. These men make the wheels go round. Without them no president could carry on effectively. They have done their work well and they deserve our gratitude. We are all too prone to think of these college positions as delightful jobs among the beautiful Hanover hills, where visits to the golf course are a part of the daily program. We often forget the heavy schedule of work carried by many of our college officers, and we ignore the fact that it is they who share with the president the intimate responsibilities when the tragedies of college life occur. Work is work, and worry is worry, whether surrounded by campus elms or by city smokestacks.
There should now be some sort of or- ganized summary of this discourse, or as Craven Laycock taught us, a peroration. But I defy anyone to tie together the dis- connected threads of this talk. About all we can say in conclusion is: We enjoyed our undergraduate years in Hanover; we believe we learned a little something here which helped us to learn a lot more later; we are grateful to the men who have made Dartmouth great over the past fifty years; we are proud of Dartmouth's past, and we esteem her present. And we can say, as Baxter Perry Smith said in 1878 in concluding his History of Dartmouth College, even though his rhetoric is too ornate for today, we "hope that her walls may stand, through all the ages of the future, strong as the everlasting hills, and beautiful as the celestial dome."
EDWARD K. ROBINSON 'O4, whose address in behalf of the three 45-Year Classes is printed here, poses in Alumni Gymnasium just before speaking.
At the annual meeting of the GeneralAlumni Association on June 18, the mainalumni address was given by Edward K.Robinson '04 of Boston, who spoke in behalf of the Classes of 1903, 1904, and 1905,all of which were holding reunions inHanover that weekend. The following is acondensation of his address on that occasion.
