'58 Joins the Family

THE daily shrinkage report from the Freshman Office was of uncommon interest around the middle of last month, because the pre-matriculation figure for the Class of 1958 made it the largest entering class in Dartmouth's history. We have to go to press before the enrollment figures finally shake down, but it looks as though the 760 men who entered three years ago will still give the record to the Class of 1955, now embarking on its senior year. At something in excess of 750 men, the newest Dartmouth class will take second place away from 1956, which matriculated 745 men.

The crew-hatted and name-tagged members of 1958 took over the town a week before Convocation, to go through the rather strenuous registration and orientation period. Their long days were filled with meetings, interviews, examinations, physical tests, and conferences, leading up to the individual meetings with President Dickey at matriculation in the 1902 Room of Baker Library. The Sophomore Orientation Committee, established last year by the Undergraduate Council, was on hand all week to be helpful to the newcomers and to teach them some of the more spirited aspects of Dartmouth life. A few freshmen, who might have picked a more civilized hour, learned how to ring the chapel bells all by themselves.

From a reliable faculty source, we pass along one freshman scene. A '58er and his mother emerge from a dorm, the freshman attired like so many of his classmates in tan chino pants, sports shirt, frosh hat, and gleaming white buck shoes. They start along the walk, but suddenly the boy halts and eyes a pile of dirt near one of the new student parking lots. Quickly he goes over, rubs dirt all over his new white bucks, and returns grinning to his mother. "Okay, let's go," he says. That was more fun, we imagine, than buying a pair of white bucks that now come already dirtied by the manufacturer.