The Fifty-Year Address

IT is my privilege and great honor to represent the Class of 1908; perhaps not a great class to others, but to us the greatest class in the history of Dartmouth College.

I knew every member of the class and we shared our troubles and our fun.

We lived in Hanover, even on weekends. We knew one another, helped one another and depended upon one another.

It is a different life today; mobility has changed it all. And while I honor the good old days, I would not ask for their return as I am confident that the Dartmouth of today is far superior to the Dartmouth of 1908. I am also confident that fifty years from now, one of the men just graduated will bring a similar message to the Class of 2008.

I graduated from Boston English High in 1901 and went to work for Ginn & Company. Mr. Lewis Parkhurst, for many years a Trustee of Dartmouth, was my boss. I was an errand boy at $4 a week. After three years I decided I wanted to go to college and Mr. Parkhurst agreed to rehire me after I graduated.

I was accepted at Dartmouth and arrived in Hanover in September 1904, a city boy in a country town.

I secured a job waiting on table at 17¢ an hour, found that washing dishes paid 20¢ an hour, took that job and later discovered that cooking paid 25$ an hour, so I cooked my way through college and into the hotel business.

Spring vacation of my senior year I called on Mr. Parkhurst and reminded him that I was graduating in June and that I had promised to call on him at that time.

I will never forget his reply: "Well, my boy, we will make a place for you." I said "You don't have to make a place for me, I have an opportunity to go on with the hotel business."

"Do you like it?" he asked and I replied, "I surely do." "Well, by all means, forget the book publishing business and do what you will enjoy doing. Happiness in one's work should be the goal of every man's endeavors."

So I am addressing the Class of 1958 with this thought in mind.

Please do not be talked into going into a profession or business for monetary gain only, or to please your parents. Enter the door to contentment by selecting a business or profession that will eventually give you an opportunity to express yourself, where the days are all too short because you so thoroughly enjoy your work.

Today there is a great hue and cry for scientists, and probably there are many of you who would be happy in that field. But there are many who would be miserable.

The giant strides that have been made in education give college graduates greater opportunities than ever before, whether it be in law, medicine, teaching, politics, or business, and in this country you are allowed to choose your life work.

I know you will not think it strange if at this time I refer briefly to some of our idols of 1904 to 1908.

William Jewett Tucker, our President, was loved and respected, even when he lectured us against the immoderate use of profanity. We all squirmed when he said, "An educated gentleman should be able to express himself clearly and forcefully without the use of profanity. Only the man with a limited vocabulary needs to be profane."

"Chuck" Emerson, Dean of Dartmouth those four glorious years, was my friend and protector. Arriving on the campus four weeks late the beginning of my junior year because of my summer hotel job, I was told I had exceeded the time limit and could not carry on with my class. But good old Dean Emerson called a Faculty meeting, and presented my case so well that I was reinstated.

Craven Laycock, our teacher of argumentation and debate who supplemented his salary as a professor by practicing law, won a case for me from the American Tobacco Company, whose products I was selling, but refused to charge me for his services because I was working my way through college.

Later, as we all know, Professor Laycock became one of the great Deans of Dartmouth.

One more member of the Faculty I must refer to: Charles Francis Richardson, "Clothespins" to us. Nearly every member of our class took his English courses 19 and 20, only available to seniors. He was an inspiration to us and when he recited poetry you could have heard a pin drop. Please bear in mind there were about 140 in the class, and they were not a poetic group.

But enough about the old days. They are gone and we now salute the Class of 1958, who are better educated, and better prepared to face the world, than we were fifty years ago.

It is a more turbulent world now, and it will make more demands upon you. The past four years should have prepared you to meet those demands.

In conclusion, my advice to you is this: The Dartmouth that we all love has done its best for you, and in return, I ask you to give your best to society.

Come back to Hanover as often as possible. Join a Dartmouth Club, read the ALUMNI MAGAZINE and in every way show our hard-working President and Faculty that you appreciate what they have done for you, and that you are proud to be a Dartmouth man.

I speak as a boy who became a man in Hanover and who owes more to Dartmouth than he can ever repay.

Lauris G. Treadway '08

The official reunion picture on the campus was an event for every class.