Names Make News
Hanover's annual best-seller, the Dartmouth College Directory, came off the presses early in November and once again provided some interesting reading, contrary to what one might think of the reading possibilities in a utilitarian listing of names, addresses and titles. The directory holds nothing back when it comes to printing middle names, and it is worth the price of the booklet just to discover that the guarded "X." in the roommate's name stands for Xenophon. And anyone expecting the arrival of a boy in the family can do worse than study the directory to see how the name problem was solved by some 2800 sets of parents in years past.
Listed in the 1950-51 directory are 2,813 students, exactly 644 members of the teaching and administrative staffs of the College, 28 emeritus officers, 12 Trustees, 38 members of the Alumni Council, 28 departmental chairmen, and a variety of council and committee members.
The last page of the directory is in some respects the most interesting, for there is printed the geographical breakdown of the student body. Forty-six states are represented in the College this year, with only Mississippi and North Carolina missing. New York has its customary lead with 570 men, and Massachusetts, which last took top honors in 1947-48, is second with 466. States with 20 or more students at Dartmouth are: New Jersey, 295; Connecticut, 200; Pennsylvania, 188; Illinois, 152; Ohio, 137; New Hampshire, 134; California, 73; Vermont, 54; Michigan, 52; Minnesota, 46; Maine, 43; Colorado, 41; Maryland, 31; Missouri, 25; Rhode Island, 24; Wisconsin, 24; Florida, 23; and Indiana, 20. The District of Columbia also has 20 men enrolled.
After this group come Tennessee, 14; Virginia, 13; lowa, 12; West Virginia, 11; Nebraska, 9; Delaware, 8; Washington, 8; Wyoming, 7; Oregon, 6; Texas, 6; Ken- tucky, 5; Kansas, 4; Montana, 4; Alabama, 3; New Mexico, 3, and South Carolina, 3. States with two students each are Arizona, Arkansas, Idaho, Louisiana, Nevada, Oklahoma, South Dakota and Utah. Georgia and North Dakota barely make the list with a single representative each.
Twelve men from Hawaii and 11 from Canada are listed. Foreign lands represented number 25 and include Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, China, Colombia, Cuba, Denmark, Eire, England, France, Germany, Greece, Iraq, Japan, Kenya, Korea, Mexico, Norway (5), Spain, Southern Rhodesia, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, Venezuela, and British West Indies.
A student body with such geographical diversity is a lively force for liberal education. The list above discloses spots where national representation needs to be strengthened, but it also shows that the Selective Process is doing its job.
