Press

Dartmouth—EducationalInstitution

To THE EDITOR:

It may seem curious that we should take pride in an article in the current Dartmouth Alumni Magazine to the effect that the guiding principle in Dartmouth's public relations is that the college is an educational institution. Yet too many schools and colleges tend to emphasize other things, seem to hesitate to admit, even to themselves, that their primary reason for existence is education.

As a Dartmouth man we have winced when we have heard the college characterized as a place of beer and carnivals, of football week-ends and Monday hangovers, of four years spent in a daze of undergraduate irresponsibility. Like most Dartmouth men we shrug and let it pass, because we know there is more, much more, to the college, and how do you explain what Dartmouth means when talking with someone who has never been there? For that matter, how do you explain what a college education means?

Education in Hanover means classes and books, but it also means trying out for the soccer team, and climbing Moosilauke in winter, and in these times, ROTC drill. It means browsing through the library stacks, and arguing far into the night, and finding some of your own beliefs wearing a little thin as they rub against the ideas of students from other parts of the world. Above all it means a wonderful, stimulating contact with men of imagination, and a realization that horizons are unlimited, and if a man is smart enough and works hard enough he can be an architect or a teacher, an archaeologist or a diplomat, an engineer or a minister.

Education means understanding and tolerance, a sense of perspective and an appreciation of history. It means a willingness to learn more, and a realization that there is more to be learned. It is the colleges like Dartmouth that we look to for leadership in an age when the fate of nations may depend on man's knowledge and understanding of his neighbors and of the world.

Dartmouth has reaffirmed that it is an educational institution, and we find this emphasis on fundamentals particularly reassuring.