"I Am Having a Wonderful Time"

WHAT'S in a name?" Shakespeare wrote. In the case of the Hopkins Center, this magnificent structure would somehow seem less with any other name, and one of the fitting and heart-warming aspects of the inaugural program was the presence of President Emeritus Hopkins at many of the events. Two days before the formal dedication on November 8, Mr. Hopkins celebrated his 85th birthday, and the opening of the Center was in a sense a very special birthday present to this man who so simply yet completely holds the affection and esteem of all Dartmouth men.

To all inquiries about how he was reacting to the Center's extended inauguration, Mr. Hopkins replied that he was having a wonderful time. Beneath the surface there doubtless was strong emotion, but as he performed his part in the inaugural program Mr. Hopkins demonstrated once again that he - lost none of his delightful ability to blend seriousness with human warmth and humor. This is how he responded to a deluge of tributes at the dedication ceremony:

"This is an occasion with more sentiment in it than I anticipated. I think perhaps Warner Bentley would have something to say of this, since in the '20s I brought him to Dartmouth with the promise that we would build him something like this as soon as possible. There was a distinguished college president who withdrew a resolution from the board of trustees to dismiss a professor. One of the trustees said, 'But didn't he call you a liar?' And the president replied, 'Yes, and he proved it.'

"Well, institutionally the College has made good whatever my administration did and I would be the first to congratulate Warner that the promise has eventually been kept... .

"If I do not speak today of the overwhelming personal impact of this occasion, if I do not speak of the magnitude of the honor which has been offered, most of all if I do not speak of humbleness, it is not that I am entirely bereft of those characteristics. But it is that today the significance of this event to the College makes anything else of microscopic importance. Personally Ido not think that the influence of this event can be appraised for many years.

"I am happy to see Dartmouth a pioneer in a project of this sort. If one believes, as I do, that education is not education if it is simply an education of the specialist; if one believes, as I do, that something more is necessary than to become technically expert in the sciences; if one believes that beauty and art and all that microcosm that we call culture are as essential to man as anything else, then the significance of this occasion begins to be apparent. This is something more than the addition to the campus of a structure of dignity and grandeur. It is something more than a meeting place for undergraduates. It is something more than an exhibit of what a college plant can be made. It will in the course of events, I am certain, become the heart and soul of Dartmouth. Man is something more than a chemical compound enclosed in a skin, the mind is something more than a computer, and the soul of man - nobody knows what it is, but it exists. And this Center stands for all those things.

"I have been associated with Dartmouth for 65 years-65years ago I entered here.... It has been a delightful experience entirely beyond its educational advantage to be associated with the College. And perhaps this is the capstone of it all.

"A man very seldom exults in his own failures. Twice in association with faculty and Trustees and undergraduates we formulated plans for a Center but we did not have the ability to carry them out. In other words, accomplishment was not within us. And it has been for years a disappointment. But I am happy today that we did not carry out the plans, because without the vision and imagination and persistence of John Dickey we would never have had a structure of this scope and this significance.

"In my early days with the College there was a village eccentric, a flamboyant woman, who lived up beyond the reservoir. She walked to the village each day to exchange gossip and check up on new registrations at the Inn. Some of the older residents of the town and a lot of the older alumni will recognize the Widow Grasse. One day, hot and dusty, she was picked up by good Samaritans in order that she might not have to walk all the way home. And with the curiosity that was typical of her she inquired who were her benefactors. When Mrs. Nichols, wife of the newly elected President of Dartmouth, said that she was the guest of President Nichols, the Widow Grasse leaned back in the surrey and said, 'My, my, I'm having a better time than I thought I was.' And that is my spirit today."

President Emeritus Ernest Martin Hopkins '01

The Top of the Hop, student lounge in the Center, now provides the finest view of the campus.

The Hopkins Center Theater, off the main lobby, as the audience was arriving for the inaugural play.