The 35-Year Address
Mr. Larmon, president of Young andRubicam and chairman of the DartmouthDevelopment Council, spoke at the General Alumni Association meeting, June 17,as the representative of the Classes of 1914,1915 and 1916, jointly holding their 35threunions that weekend. The following isa stenographic report of his remarks.
ELEVEN YEARS AGO this month, it was my privilege to appear on this same platform when I spoke to the graduating class of 1939 and the reuning classes. The principal speaker was that great scientist and fine human being, C. F. Kettering. In as much as I preceded Mr. Kettering, it seemed to me fitting that I should make some reference to research. So I dug up some figures which I quoted at the time, and made the brash prediction that research would have a profound influence on our lives in the next decade. Little did I know whereof I spoke. Came the rocket plane, television and the atom bomb.
Today I stay on a safer subject: Dartmouth the Dartmouth of 35 years ago, the Dartmouth of today, and some high spots of Dartmouth history. I was recalling last night, when we showed our class movies over in front of the dormitory, of the parade across the campus of our 25th reuning class. Then, as now, we were led by Flanders' Highland Band. We had at the head of our parade Gus Englehorn, All-American player of our day, and we carried a big 1914 banner and we were sticking out our chests and feeling quite young. As we passed the Senior Fence there was sitting there one undergraduate and he made a remark for which I will never forgive him, for as we passed by I overheard him say: "There go the thick of waist and the short of breath."
Now we of the thick paunches and thinning locks have seen a greater change at Dartmouth in the past 35 years than occurred in the previous 146 years of her history. Let's take a quick look. In her first 146 years Dartmouth accumulated assets of five and a half millions. Today, 35 years later, the assets exceed 35 millions.
has multiplied seven-fold. The plant back in 1915 was valued at less than two millions. Today it is appraised at four times that figure. In three and a half decades the student body has doubled in size. The endowment
From a college with the largest gym and the smallest library has emerged the modern Dartmouth with library and study facilities second to none. It is a Dartmouth to be proud of. With the foundation laid by the revered and beloved President Tucker—with the vision, the high purpose and the superb human qualities of President Hopkins—and with the good fortune with which Dartmouth has been blessed in having another great educator and leader in President Dickey, Dartmouth's stature and her usefulness to society continue to grow and to grow and to grow.
Historically, Dartmouth and her graduates have had a sizable impact on the destinies of our nation. If we go back to the early years, we find that there were 1,177 graduates during the presidencies of Eleazar Wheelock and his son John—that is about the size of the current Dartmouth enrollment. Among these 1,177 graduates, three were members of the President's Cabinet, eight were U. S. Senators, 37 were members of the House of Representatives, ten were Governors of States, one was a Justice of the Supreme Court, 12 were college presidents, six were Generals in the Army, and one an Episcopal Bishop.
On the reverse side, one of Dartmouth's early students came to no good end. L. B. Richardson of the Dartmouth faculty tells of Stephen Burroughs, that he was a swindler, a confidence man, a horse thief, and a counterfeiter. A quick comparison of the current Dartmouth product to that of Eleazar and John Wheelock's time shows that the quality is still being maintained. Take, for example, our reuning classes—1914, '15 and '16. Obviously, as I look them over from here, they are men just reaching the full bloom of maturity, with their best years ahead. Yet, a quick check of this group shows there are some fifty-odd in Who's Who. In this group we have an Admiral, 1915; '15 has a General and so has '16. We have six college deans. We have been represented, too, by a college president; we have Representatives in the Congress of the United States, and we have had men in high positions in Government. There have been authors galore, including 1914's famous Thorne Smith, the author of the famous Topper series, and so on.
Going over the years and taking just one single classification, the educational, one finds that Dartmouth has literally been the Mother of College Presidents. Two of the Superintendents of the U. S. Military Academy have been Dartmouth men, including Sylvanus Thayer, Father of West Point. We have had three presidents of Bowdoin, one of Colby, one of Amherst, one of Williams; three Dartmouth men have been Presidents of the University of Vermont, two of Middlebury, one of Hobart, two of Wabash, one of Vassar, two of Hamilton, one of Bates, one of University of North Carolina, one of the University of Illinois, and recently, a President of Cornell. Currently six colleges or universities are headed by Dartmouth men, of whom the dean in point of service is Harry N. Chase, Chancellor of New York University.
Dartmouth has grown from humble beginnings. In the 1760's there were few men of means in the Colonies. So Eleazar sent the Reverend Nathaniel Whitaker and Samson Occom to England to solicit funds. More than 10,000 pounds sterling was raised—the contributions of 2169 subscribers in 216 English and Scotch communities. What you may not know is that Dartmouth's largest gift was not from Lord Dartmouth, but in the sum of two hundred pounds from that perpetual enemy of Colonel Robert McCormick of the ChicagoTribune, King George 111.
Eleazar had his problems. First, he met here on this site an unbroken forest of white pines, 100 feet to the first branch, and some of them 370 feet in height. These had to be cleared away to erect the first primitive buildings, one of which was a brew house. When students complained of the food, which is their perennial right and custom, Eleazar admitted that the diet of pork and greens left something to be desired, but he stoutly maintained that the beer was of good quality.
Eleazar's second Commencement in 1772, at which there were two graduates, had a number of distinguished guests, including Governor Wentworth who distributed an ox roasted, bread, and a hogshead of liquor. Tradition has it that Eleazar's two cooks did not share in the decorum of the occasion. They became dead drunk and left the doctor with the distinguished guests and no one to provide for them.
In 1775, Eleazar's ten thousand pounds sterling were exhausted. From thence on the College had its financial problems. In later years three lotteries were attempted. Two were failures; the third in 1795 raised $3672. One item, I think, will be of interest to you, as it was to me when I uncovered it, and that is that during a decade of John Wheelock's administration, 1790-1800, Dartmouth was second only to Harvard in the number of its graduates, exceeding Yale, Princeton, or any other educational institution.
Now, skipping through the Presidencies of Francis Brown, Daniel Dana and Bennett Tyler, we come to that picturesque and controversial figure, Nathan Lord. By 1863, the College was paying its President the munificent salary of $16oo per year and on this income President Lord raised ten children. Eight sons attended and were graduated from Dartmouth. And here in 1863, we have the curious happening of a Northerner, Nathan Lord, believing and expounding the belief that "an attack on slavery was an attack on God himself. The Dartmouth Trustees felt compelled to act and to terminate Dr. Lord's relationship to the College.
Going down through the presidencies of Asa Smith and Samuel Colcord Bartlett, we come to the founder of the new Dartmouth, the revered and saintly Dr. Tucker, the ninth President of the College; then over the few years of Dr. Nichols' administration to Dr. Hopkins, the architect and builder of the Dartmouth of today, and to his worthy successor, Dr. Dickey. Sid Hayward has referred to the current Alumni Fund and its success. In 1915, 35 years ago—that was the year that the Dartmouth Alumni Fund was inaugurated 536 men gave $6,580. In 1949, for which we have the full record, there were 14,519 contributors who gave $386,000.
Dartmouth has grown and prospered because of the loyal support of her alumni. The Alumni Fund, in amount and in percentage of givers to graduates, is the continuing envy of our sister institutions.
Dr. Hopkins and Dr. Dickey in turn have stressed the purpose of the liberal arts college. It is to encourage and stimulate men to think. If order is to emerge out of the chaos that exists in the world today, it will be because men have learned to think, and to think straight.
The desitiny of the world has been changed because, nearly a century ago, the half-starved Engels and Karl Marx used the light and warmth of the British Museum as their study to collaborate on DasKapital. And in 1925, a former house painter published Mein Kampf which, too, has profoundly influenced our destinies. The isms developed by Marx and Hitler can only be met through a knowledge of the causes of world-wide economic revolution. The answer is education and understanding, the kind of education fostered at Dartmouth where the "Great Issues" course brings home to students a sense of responsibility for oar social order. Aristotle once was asked how much educated men were superior to the uneducated. "As much," said he, "as the living to the dead." I submit to you that our hope for the future is in education, in the ideas, the precepts and the programs that will come from students who have been encouraged to think, and who have been alerted to contemporary world problems.
On Sunday last, in the historic and picturesque setting of the Bema, John Dickey gave his final benediction to Dartmouth's largest graduating class: "And now, once again," he said, "the word is 'so long', for in the Dartmouth fellowship there is no parting." And I say to you that in that Dartmouth fellowship there is a deep and lasting obligation to see that Dartmouth continues strong and virile.
Dartmouth will need your support in the coming years in a measure far beyond your contributions of the past.
Because Dartmouth sons know no peers, and because Dartmouth is Dartmouth, I know that you will give it.
SIGURD S. LARMON '14, who gave the 35-year Address at the Alumni Association meeting June 17.
TRUSTEE OF THE COLLEGE
