As the Century Turned
...AND MANY DARTMOUTH YESTERDAYS Extracts from letters written by Douglas VanderHoof '01, reflecting College life in his freshman, sophomore and junior years, 1897-1900
Freshman Year
September 13, 1897 - We arrived at Norwich at 8-15 this A.M. & then for 25 cts I had myself & all my baggage conveyed right here by coach.[...]
I registered (at college) today & found out that my bill for the first term is $2200 but Pres. Tucker told me that if I stood 85% for the first term, that this bill would pay for the whole 3 terms. In fact there would be 100l00 coming to me as $106 (the tuition with library fees) less $85 — my scholarship— is $2100[. ...]
I told Pres. Tucker that I wanted something to do to earn my way. He said that nothing could be done the first term as I knew nobody & nobody knew me. But he said to keep my eyes open.
September 17 - Well, I am now fully started in Dartmouth College — had two recitations and a lecture today — Saturday & Wednesday afternoons there are no classes. We arise about seven A.M., go to breakfast & then at 7-57 to chapel. Attendance at chapel is compulsory so the whole college meets together, the different classes being seated by thems elves. Pres Tucker presides & the service consists of the reading of a few lines from Scripture, a hymn & a prayer.
The opening exercise of the College was held in the old chapel in old Dartmouth Hall[...]. At this meeting the Pres. spoke of affairs of interest to the College & to college men[. ...] I only wish I could tell you all he said. He is a splendid manly man, & makes an ideal president for a boy's college. There's not a man here who does not respect & look up to Pres. Tucker.
October 27 - Things have been in a dreadful state here. Boys have had hardly any sleep, food or rest for the past two days. But at last the chinning season is over. And I am supremely happy in the thought that I shant have to live thro' two such days again. I have joined the Theta Delts[...].
October 31 — Yesterday afternoon I went walking with a fellow named Sawyer, a Theta Delt. We went over the golf grounds & past the links. There are a few "Medics" here who are trying to introduce golf but the students don't take hold of it very eagerly.[...]
Your idea about chinning is correct only you don't half realize what it is. One fellow gets hold of you and talks three quarters of an hour and before you have gone a block another gets hold of you and so it goes on. Then you are invited to come around to the different frats in the evening where you meet all the fellows and where you are feasted and "jawed" and sit in a circle with about five or six fellows around you telling you what they will think of you if you don't join their frat etc.
November 7 - Yesterday afternoon there was the annual Sophomore-Freshman football game, and altho the sophs had some crack players we held them down pretty well, being beaten only 10 to 6. Trude played a splendid game for the freshmen. There was considerable feeling displayed between the classes which ended in a "rush."
[¶] Just before the game we held a spirited class meeting but decided not to rush unless the sophs began it. But I dressed all prepared with my oldest clothes. After the game the sophs took a stout stick, used as a cane, and ran to the campus with it. Then as many of their men as possible got hold of the stick and the rest tried to keep us off. It was a very fierce rush, much fiercer than any last year, I am told. We went right into them and fought and pushed for a full half hour.
[¶] I went into it with all my might and as a result have a very stiff neck, am lame all over, especially my sides, and have a black & blue spot on my temple. I managed to work my way in in the first part of the rush & got a hand on the cane. Then two sophs got hold of me one on each side and took me by the collar & pulled steady until I was completely choked. There happened to be no freshman at hand to keep them off and as a consequence I was "choked off." My old vest was ripped down the back & my old shirt, one of those you made me long ago had the band badly torn. My feet were so stepped on that the eyelets of the bicycle shoes that I wore had to be pried up with a knife before I could unlace them.
[¶]Well, the rush was declared a tie, each side having 17 hands on the cane, but I am quite sure the Freshmen won, altho the seniors who acted as judges said 17 apiece in order not to prevent the regular cane rush which comes off in the spring. For if we had won this rush the fellows might not wish to risk another.
January 19, 1898 — I have now found out my approximate marks in my various studies and will tell you them — Math in exam VG. and in daily work "E."— Latin- exam G., d.w. VG.[—] Frenchexam "E." and d.w. "E." You cant realize my joy at obtaining such marks three "E's" think of it.[. . .] You understand that "E." means 92% or over, V.G. 85%-92% and G. 75-85—[...]
I have started boarding at the Kyea (pronounced Key) Club and this afternoon went around & saw Mr & Mrs Kyea. They are very nice old people as I was told they were. I had a very long talk with them and seem to impress them as being all right so that they promised me a position to wait on table at the first vacancy which should occur.
January 30 - 34° below Zero yesterday morning! How's that.[...] Everything is on runners. Have not seen one wagon wheel since I struck town [following the Christmas vacation] and I guess we wont see the ground again until we get down on the campus and shovel off the snow for the first baseball game in the spring.
Last night the "kid faculty" gave an amateur theatrical performance at the "Gym." The play, A Midwinter's Night Dream" was written, music and all by "Ed & Mary" i.e. Prof, and Mrs. Frost. Almost all the young professors and their wives took part in it and as it was an in- vitation affair was very select, of course. Very few of the students were invited, only a few Seniors.
February 9 — This afternoon there was a mass meeting in the old chapel in Dartmouth Hall to talk over the honor system. It has been brought up several times and the Faculty have just finished acting on it and have submitted our constitution as amended by them. I am very much in favor of adopting the system where [by] each pupil will be put on his honor, and by which I firmly believe the standard of the college will be raised.[...]
[¶]After 'the regular meeting was over a base ball rally was held & it was decided to levy a tax of 2.50 on each student, for the support of the team.[...]
[¶]Then after this meeting there was a rush for the doors and as soon as the first ones got out they immediately began bombarding the rest with snow balls. As I with the rest of the Freshmen was up in the gallery I couldn't get out as everybody was lined up outside with snow balls ready to throw half a hundred balls at the first head to appear. Many jumped out of the back windows and a general fight ensued. Consequence, seventy four panes of glass broken — think of it.[...] Watching my opportunity, I jumped out of a rear window and altho' twenty snowballs were thrown at me I got away un- scathed. Harold did not fare so well being hit on the bridge of the nose with a regular cannon ball.
February 17 - All Tuesday night and yesterday a blizzard has raged and no one here in college remembers one so severe. [...]
Last night there was great excitement here. Prof. Dow's new 16,000 house burned to the ground. It was just comp leted and his young wife was in Boston purchasing the furniture.
[¶]We were in fraternity meeting and heard cries of fire! One of the boys was sent down and came back with the report. The hall was cleared in less than a minute We had to run thro' untrodden snow way above our knees and I must have fallen down ten times.
[¶] Nothing could be done to save it, altho they brought out a little hand hose cart and played a single stream on it. It was a terrible night, the wind was blowing a gale and the only thing that saved the neighboring houses was the fact that the wind was not blowing towards them. When a fire starts in this town there is nothing to stop it.
April 13 - Spring weather is here now and you begin to see the fellows lying around on the campus, smoking their pipes and watching the 'Varsity base ball squad practice. We are going to have a good nine this year and have great exp ectations of winning the championship of the tri-angular league, consisting of Williams, Amherst & Dartmouth.
April 24—1 was greatly surprised this afternoon at Vesper Service, how seriously "Prexy" views the war upon which we have now entered. His talk was very impressive and you could have heard a pin drop at any time during the half hour in which he spoke. I have thought right along that the war would not last more than a couple of weeks at the most and that it would entail just simply our navy in its normal state. But during the last few days many of the boys have received summons from their regiments, etc and it was on this issue that "Prexy" spoke.
[¶]He said that we who are undergraduates are at present in the greatest crisis of our lives, and that it is for us to carefully consider wherein our duty lies. He said that before any of us enlisted we should consider two things. I Any sensative attachment which might keep us at home II Wheth[e]r we were enlisting in an opportunity or a necessity.
[¶lHe dwelt on the fact that quite a number might leave with their regiments next week and when he ended I felt "all broke up" and several fellows went away wjth tears in their eyes. His talk was mainly to prepare us for what might be in store for us, and also to prevent many from enlisting "in an opportunity and not a necessity" i.e. to prevent many from enlisting just for the adventures. The necessity may come but only the opportunity is here now and there are many besides college men to fill the ranks at present.
May 5 - Last Monday morning nineteen fellows went off from college to join their regiment at Concord N.H.[. . .] We all marched down to the station in regular military style and cheered them off. It was a very solemn affair and I noticed that all the boys were pretty quiet on the way back from the station.
Sophomore Year
September 21, 1898 — My studies so far have been decidedly easy. I have German, English (with a 5 page essay every week), Biology History and Physics. But before long I suppose it will be necessary to buckle down in good shape. There are quite a number of new professors on the faculty.
[¶]My biology course is going to be intensely interesting. We start in with microscopic work on the minute structure of the lowest forms of animal life. English is going to be a good deal of a bore but I shall do what I can with it. History is hard and exacting but interesting
Physics tho' difficult is going to be a favorite with me and German will be quite easy. I have secured two monitor ships which will just about pay my washing bills.
October 12 - Down at the Keay club matters are just as they were before. None of the waiters have their tables full. I have been putting a great deal of my spare time in looking for boarders but to no avail. The only way I can explain matters is this. The board at the Keay club is 3.50 per week. A good many of the clubs only charge 2.75 to 3.00 while on the other hand there are a good many $4.00 & $5.00 clubs. Now the wealthy fellows all go to the high priced clubs and the poor ones frequent the cheap clubs and that leaves hardly any one for Keays. As it is now I am earning just Vi my board, but I shall be untiring in my efforts to fill up my table.
[¶]Yesterday I had my conference with "Eric the Red." He is my history prof, and about once every month he calls up the class one by one at appointed times and asks them questions on their outside readings and also examines their notebooks. I had quite a "spiel" with him and he told me that my work had been very good and that my map of Europe in 476 A.D. was the best that had been ever handed in to him.
October 19 - We had a mass meeting last Thursday called by the Seniors to forestall any action of the faculty in abolishing hazing. It is said that our class did more hazing than any other class in the history of the college. Pres. Tucker was very much displeased and decided to put a stop to it, and when he once determines to do anything he never - stops until he accomplishes his end. Every member of our class was called up before the dean at different times and questioned. In this way & thro' outside sources it was narrowed down to about 15 sophomores among them several baseball men and other prominent fellows of the class. I told the dean that I had been out several nights but had made the freshmen do nothing very disagreeable.
[¶]At the mass meeting speeches were made showing how useless it would be to take any action contrary to Prexy's way of thinking and rather than have hazing abolished by the faculty — we submitted to the inevitable and passed resolutions for its abolishment from Dartmouth College forever. Hazing in a way is a good thing for some fellows who come up here in all the glory of their High school graduation & think they can run everything. But indiscriminate hazing is a very bad state of affairs. [...]
[¶]We had another mass meeting of the college today, called by Prexy. He congratulated us on our action and said that further action against the sophomores would be suspended.
November 6 - I guess that there is no danger of our freezing this winter. We are now getting our steam from the central heating station which is over a block away and we have to keep the windows open all the time.
November 16 - This evening just after supper the college bell began tolling. It was to announce the death of ex-president Bartlett. He was president before Prexy Tucker and was in the 81st year of his life when he died. He was a fine old man and is acknowledged to be among the three greatest scholars of the present time. I have heard him speak several times and he was an exceedingly brilliant man. They say that the reason he was not an entire success as a college president was that he lacked tact — a quality that Prexy Tucker possesses to a wonderful degree. Pres. Bartlett used to go at every body with an open blade & of course made many enemies. There will probably be a large funeral & the whole college will escort the procession.
February 5, 1899 - I am very much interested in my work in Biology and am once more very enthusiastic over the prospect of being an M. D. I really think that it is the profession best suited to me, and I shall elect all my studies with that end in view.
February 22 - I have some good news to tell you. Dr. Jennings, our Biology instructor has appointed me as his assista nt in the laboratory. I guess he realizes that I am working very earnestly in my biology, with a definite end in view. I did not ask him for the position as I did not know that he required an assistant, but he asked me if I should like to do it and I told him that as I was earning my way as far as possible, it would be most acceptable. He gives me twenty cents an hour but just now it wont amount to very much as there is not over 2½ or 3 hours work to do in a week. Still 50 or 60 cents a week amounts up at the end of a term and then it may lead to better things if I prove very useful to him, which I hope to do.
March 5 - I am taking life very easy, eating my meals in my room etc as the result of the German measles which are all over college and as this weeks Dartmouth says is the "popular disease."
April 23 - We are having hot summer days now and the boys are all out in negligee shirts etc This is the only time of the year for Hanover. The seniors are now wearing their caps and gowns and their senior canes have arrived. They are large heavy sticks with a carved Indian's head for a handle. The fellows all carve their names on the canes so that each cane is literally covered with nicknames etc and makes a most pleasant souvenir of ones last days at College.
May 15 - Our carnival was the greatest success imaginable for everything turned out successfully We won our debate from Williams—beat her twice in baseball - ad some good parades — in one of which the editors of the "Dartmouth" rode in a tallyho- & four & had our pictures taken. Then 1901 won the cane rush!!! It was very fierce & was 'way ahead of any thing of last year.[...]
[¶]To crown carnival week — Prexy Tucker returned to Hanbver today after being abroad since the first of the year. He was accorded a great ovation in Bos- ton by the alumni there & his reception was no less boisterous here. The whole college met him at the top of the hill with the band etc — He is in the best of health and enjoyed a very pleasant vacation.
Junior Year
September 19, 1899 - Sunday night I had a chill & yesterday was in bed all day with a bad head. Dr. Frost called last night & said he would send Dr. Kingsford, of the Hospital, down to draw a little of my blood to determine, by microscopic examination, if I had malaria or typhoid fever. It is now 300 P.M. & the verdict has just come. He found typhoid in my blood.[...] Dr. Frost thinks I am going to have it very lightly, but in order to have the best care he will take me to the Hospital this afternoon
September 24 - The check arrives very opportunely as it costs a good deal to be sick here in Hanover. The Hospital is 1200 a week I believe.[...] If there is no change for the worse I hope to get out of here in another week altho that will be a very short time for a fever case.
September 25 - Dartmouth has just received a gift of $300 000.00 from an alumnus in Prexy Tuckers class. Income to be used entirely in increasing the curriculum.
November 12 - ln the same mail with this letter I send you a couple of photos. Our "Aegis" comes out just before Christas You know, every junior class gets out an "Aegis" which is just a book of fun etc containing accounts of the frater- nities athletics, literary & dramatic side of collese life etc, with pictures of all the members of .he class.
December 13 - Have decided to remain Hanover during the Christmas vacarion altho' they all say that after one such experience one would rather go anywhere than repeat the performance.
[¶]ln your last letter you ask for information about my studies. Well, my best course is under "Billy" Patten in Rinlogy. We have just finished a stiff book "on the theories of the cell[...] & now are supplementing this work with general theories of heredity, of the transmission of acquired characters — Darwinism & Weismannism etc.[...]
My other biology course is under Dr Moore which is a course in Cryptogamic Botany[...].
In Chemistry we are just beginning a systematic study of the elements inorganic chemistry. This leads next year to courses in organic chemistry & toxicology (criminal poisoning) etc which will be of great benefit if I study medicine
Economics is hard. [...]
Now comes my only "snap" course, English 7, required Junior study. "Clothespins" Richardson gives us two lectures and one quiz a week. It is a splendid general culture course[:] Lectures on Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton Dryden etc & selected sympathetic readings.
Besides all this [as laboratory assistant] I have four two hour classes of the sophomores in biology under "Squirt" Jerould.
January 22, 1900 — Prexy announced this morning of a new school of Finance & Administration which was to be establ ished here next year for those who want post graduate work not in any profess ional but business lines.
February 4 - Several nights ago Harold and I went over to the dancing school at Norwich. He is very anxious to learn to waltz well, & I said I would go over with him, just for the fun of it as they always have a dance after the lesson. There was a funny old teacher who played the violin as he taught. The great trouble was the striking lack of girls, but such as were there were good dancers, & I didnt seem to have any trouble getting partners & had a fine time; but the whole affair cost a dollar so I guess I wont go over there again very soon.
February 9 - Last Tuesday I took my first lesson in skeeing and was out all Wednesday afternoon. Wednesday however there was a very hard crust formed on the snow, which made the skeeing lots of fun unless you happened to tumble - Well, in going down a long steep hill, my skees got crossed & threw me on my face—Well, you ought to have seen me go. My face was pushed into the crust & my feet went right over my head, turning a complete somersault. To relieve your mind I will say that the bruises are only skin deep, but a tatooed man's face is not a circumstance to mine — my nose & right cheek & both upper & lower lips — But skeeing is lots of fun.[. . .] As I wrote you Whit & "Billy" Mason & I each had a pair of skees made & they only cost l.05 which I think was very reasonable. [...]
[¶]The Davison block burned down during the night and about 30 men roomed up stairs, some of whom lost everything, including pianos etc. Half of the college was out to the fire & helped all the boys carry their stuff out & also the contents of the drug store & dry goods store below. Sib & I slept thro' jr all, not even hearing the bell or all the shouting[...].
February 11 — [...] my fraternity has honored me by electing me the head of the chapter, the first Junior to be elected, I have to prepare a long written inaugural address for next Wednesday evening.
March I - The first day of spring was ushered in by a big snow storm which has kept the snow plow busy all day around the Hanover streets[...]. But we never consider it spring in Hanover until after the Easter vacation[...].
March 26 - You cant realize how overjoyed I am to think that I was elected [to Casque and Gauntlet] as it really represents the pick of the whole class and will mean a great deal for me. Of course I haven't been initiated yet as that doesn't take place till June but the fellows want us to be around to the house as much as possible.
April 26 - Yesterday I succeeded in putting a few more beauty marks on my face Played ball in the afternoon & in trying to catch a pop fly with the sun in my eyes the ball slipped thro my hands & struck my cheek bone" with considerable force — But that is quite a common accident in ball playing. My razor got obstreperous however & took a small slice out of my chin. So that together with my scars from skeeing I look like a German student, the hero of many duels.
June 17—Am not going to stay for Commencement, as I am in such a hurry to get home to see you all that just now a week will seem a month. Then too I am in a hurry to get started on my summer's work[...].
Such a week this has been! Firs? exam last Tuesday — plugged Monday night till quarter of three, but rushed it all right — got some sleep Tuesday night - plugged Wednesday night & Thursday night did not go to bed at all — for C & G. initiation came that night & when I got back about 5-30 A.M. I had to sit right down & plug for my Friday exam at 900. Another exam yesterday kept me up Friday night until eleven, when I was so played out that I went to bed with an alarm clock & got up at four the next morning — & got to bed last night at one, & tonight it will be lucky if I reach bed by two as tomorrow the sophs have their exam in biology II & expect to have my hands full [tutoring] tonight Have got to plug tight all day tomorrow with logic coming Tuesday A.M. & chemistry Wednesday A.M. — but then it will all be over.
[¶] But it is worth it all, for I have rushed all my exams cold so far which, however, was due fully as much to the good work I have been doing in daily work as to my cramming.
Douglas VanderHoof '01 as he appeareda few years after graduation. A prominent physician, community leader, andchurchman in Richmond, Va., he taughtat the Medical College of Virginia andwas president of the Dartmouth Club ofVirginia. He died on October 31, 1957.
