The Undergraduate Chair
THE beanie is back, and, while it hasn't been worn with any astounding regularity, its return might gladden old hearts and raise the hopeful suggestion that, perhaps, the old days are not really, irretrievably, gone forever.
If the new beanie were a beanie, there might indeed be joy around Green hearths. But, truth to the fore, it is not a beanie; it is a golfer's cap, another imposter, a "class hat" in the euphemism that has gained favor.
The theory behind this splendid, dignified new canopy is apparently the same as that behind the "crew hat." A freshman should be able to stride with head high, without humiliation or degradation, across the once, but no longer, inviolate lawns. The much-feared "transition," it is said, should be as gentle and love-caressed as that from mother's arms to crib.
The fact, of course, that contravenes the theory is that just being a freshman is undignified, regardless of the headware.
The new delight had its genesis, as did its predecessor, in Dean Arthur Kiendl's haberdashery-conscious office in Parkhurst. The Dean, who apparently suffered grievously during the three-year reign of shapelessness, spotted his deliverance atop a Nassau undergraduate at the Princeton game last fall. He held the creation's image glowing in his mind until he got back to Main Street, where a merchant was asked to whip up a distinctive Dartmouth prototype. This was presented to Palaeopitus in the spring, was approved, and Dartmouth had a new tradition - which should be about 43 days old when you read this.
The Dartmouth's most cherished tradition - never be moderate about anything -got rubbed out this year when the new directorate voted to go for Ike and Dick.
"The Republicans have given expression to the will o£ the people with their program of moderate conservatism," was the electrifying statement announcing the D's first support of a conservative, moderate team since it got to be a daily.
Thus, this part of Dartmouth, too, has seen the old days drift beyond. An era that was irresponsible, yet concerned, has slipped by.
These particular old days are perhaps more happily waved away than those of Vigilantes, long rides, and the mid-campus melee, and this seems unfortunate here.
As the Vigilantes terrorized Freshmen, the old Dartmouth directorates terrorized the reluctant, the slow, and the unconcerned within Dartmouth.
They were, in this sense, the Vigilantes of the student mind, galloping out on long rides to enter melees they never feared. Capricious or convinced, they carried their lynch law into the dwellings of the self-righteous and the sacrosanct.
In reminiscence, their political forays may set old moderates shuddering again, but the same faculty recalls the true villains they rounded up in their sweeps across the range.
The fossilized form of a local pedagogue, atrophied by their derision, was as much their mark as a Herbert Hoover linked in simile to "a pair of old shoes."
They corralled the old, the safe, the proven. Irreverence was in their posture, and mud was in your eye.
These old days are gone, youth and vigor surrendered, and a once rambunctious and very free protest against what is joins the long, straight line of students, alumni, and people in general.
In this contemporary scene, Dart is a bright spot. The Houseparties issue, it is reported, will feature a major effort on the Campus Excavation Project, which has transformed the single green plain into several brown hills and laid engineering and allied sciences wide open for assault.
The first issue of the year hit the stands before the New Hampshire game, and all lingering doubts were resolved. The interegnum is over, and the Quarterly can have that field to itself. Jacko's successor will chronicle the interactions of boys and girls, in the Jacko manner.
Also dug up on campus were two po- litical clubs.
The Young Democrats claim eighty members, and this must mean - in view of the Daily D poll that showed the student body 72 percent for Eisenhower and 28 percent for Adlai - that most of the Democrats on campus are card carriers.
While they may not be convincing anybody, the New America advocates are giving the campaign a little ballyhoo. Chief stunt dreamed up in pre-season planning was a sound truck to tour the countryside playing "musical parodies of G.O.P. candidates" - whatever those are - and the club reports it is drawing strength from the revitalized Hanover Democrats "via the many young, energetic (and Democratic) professors on the faculty."
The Young Republicans, perhaps figuring anything more than 72 percent would be too much, have not communicated any sensational plans for the hoopla department. They have, however, made their spokesmen available for debates.
In terms of statistics, 478 upperclassmen, mostly sophomores, pledged fraternities after the usual week of acting like "good men," which is the thing to be these days. In human terms, some got left out, and worse, there is beginning to be concern with where the overflowing class of 1960 is going to fit in the fraternity scheme of things.
Another statistic is the rise in flick fare to 65 cents. However, Nugget manager Ken Dimick, in the smoothest public relations move made in these parts in moons and moons, laid part-of the blame to the discriminating taste of Dartmouth. In human terms, there are a lot of "discriminating" people going to movies.
Two '59s, in Hanover before registra- tion, couldn't wait to start acting like sophomores and set off for Smith that Monday morning - by canoe. Making the Bellows Falls portage successfully, youthful, enthusiastic John Hanson and Jim Sanford failed to sail into Northampton for a rendezvous, and paddled on to the city of Holyoke. Apparently, they realized the navigational error before going over the dam there, since both were back in town for a delayed registration Wednesday.
Freshmen, somehow, managed to get embroiled in the Vox Populi column of the D almost immediately. The issue was class spirit.
One '60 wrote in criticizing his fellows for not heeding SOC instruction at a rally during freshman week, signing his letter, "Name Withheld." Next day, Harry W. Fritz, same class, replied to this "weakkneed, crying idiot, WHO DIDN'T EVEN HAVE THE GUTS TO SIGN HIS OWN NAME" (his caps), and another '60, in the space below, laid into "Name Withheld," suspicious that he might be a "sophomore posing as a freshman." He also advanced the idea that his class "took a long step last week to truly becoming Dartmouth's finest class," then spoiled the whole thing by affixing his signature, "Name Withheld.
With this issue Donald D. McCuaig '54 of Ridgewood, N. J., a member of the senior class, assumes occupancy of The Undergraduate Chair. McCuaig, who interrupted his college course to serve two years in the Army, is a history major and a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon, and is student assistant in the Dartmouth News Service office. He is married to the former Judith Cowell of Harrington, N. J. (Vassar '56).
