THE COLLEGE

WITH President Emeritus Hopkins wearing a crash helmet and riding in the bulldozer, the west end of the last frame building on the Hopkins Center site was torn off as an earnest of construction to come, in a jovial "ground clearing" ceremony on October 24. The end of the building was cut through, like the end slice on a loaf of bread, and as the wall came tumbling down the large, rainy-day audience, seated in a stand and under a tent, gave a cheer and the Dartmouth Band broke into Jericho.

Among those present were the Dartmouth Trustees and the Capital Gifts Campaign steering committee, both meeting in Hanover that weekend. President Dickey presided at the brief exercises, and speakers included Prof. Warner Bentley, building committee member; Wallace K. Harrison, the architect; Edward W. Gude 59, president of Palaeopitus; and Mr. Hopkins, who accepted a one-day permit to operate a bulldozer.

Mr. Bentley reviewed the abortive efforts of the past thirty years to build a student center, and remembering the 1929 crash and World War II, which halted previous building plans, he expressed the fear that the nation might be on the verge of another catastrophe. "We never got this far before," he cheerfully added, and President Dickey assured him that this time he was really going to get his new theatre.