A Professor's Gift

THROUGH gifts and bequests many alumni and friends of the College have given expression to their affection for Dartmouth and their faith in her work and purposes. But rarely has the College been remembered in a more heart-warming way than it was in the will of the late Anton A. Raven, Professor of English, who died March 7 in his 36th year as a member of the Dartmouth faculty.

Three-fifths of Professor Raven's residual estate estimated at more than $500,000 has been left to Dartmouth, along with his house and its contents at 4 Parkway, Hanover. The other two-fifths has been willed to the Mary Hitchcock Memorial Hospital for general purposes, in addition to a specific bequest of $65,000 which, with the sums given during Professor Raven's lifetime, meets the entire cost of constructing and equipping the convalescent home he gave to the hospital in memory of his late wife, Winifred S. Raven, who died in 1946. The income from a separate bequest of $10,000 will be used for decorating and equipping the convalescent home.

Professor Raven's gift to the College is essentially unrestricted, although his will indicates a preference that some portion of it be used for scholarship aid. From the principal of a trust fund established by Mrs. Raven and now distributed upon Professor Raven's death, Dartmouth will also receive $15,000. Bryn Mawr College, Mary Hitchcock Hospital, St. Thomas Church in Hanover, and the Saranac (N. Y.) General Hospital also share in Mrs. Raven's benefactions.

Professor Raven's bequest is the largest received by Dartmouth since the Sherman B. Ward '13 bequest in 1947, and is a singularly generous act by a man who not only served the College as teacher for many years but also filled numerous positions of administrative responsibility. He was chairman of the Committee on Educational Policy, chairman of the directors of Navy V-12 courses during the war, a member of the postwar Committee on Emergency Adjustments, faculty representative on the Dartmouth Development Council, chairman of the English Department for two different terms, and a member of several faculty committees including those advisory to the President and on conference with the Trustees.