The College on the Hill, A New History of Dartmouth

A NEW history of Dartmouth College, entitled The College on the Hill, is now on the press and is scheduled to appear about the first of the year.

Informal in its historical treatment, the one-volume, illustrated chronicle of the College from its beginnings to the present time is the first in a series of projected Bicentennial publications. Although done in narrative style and without any intent of being definitive, the new history has been carefully researched during the four years that went into its making and is the distillation of a great mass of material, much of it never published before.

Ralph Nading Hill '39, the well-known Vermont author, has served as the general editor of The College on the Hill and has written three of the six sections into which the book is divided. His chapters deal with "The Historic College," "The Students" and "The Modern College." Stearns Morse, Professor of English Emeritus, has written two sections - on "The Place" and "The Faculty" — and F. William Andres '29 and Ernest A. Roberts have jointly done the section on athletics, entitled "Wearers of the Green." President Dickey has contributed a 19-page foreword, entitled "Dartmouth on Purpose," which constitutes one of his finest and most thoughtful statements about the modern-day college and about Dartmouth's educational character and purpose as it nears the start of its third century.

The College on the Hill is primarily text, although some 90 illustrations help to make it a far more attractive volume than either of the two earlier histories published by the College and now out of print. The forthcoming book, published by Dartmouth Publications and copyrighted by the Trustees of Dartmouth College, contains 384 pages of 7% by 11 size. It has been designed by Prof. Ray Nash, director of Dartmouth Publications and of the College's graphic arts studio, and is being printed by the Meriden Gravure Company, one of the quality

printing houses of the country. Newly drawn maps of the College in 1864 and in 1964 are being used as end papers for the new history, and another specially prepared map, printed in the body of the book, shows the College as it was in 1775, five years after Eleazar Wheelock moved his Indian school from Connecticut to Hanover Plain.

The story of Dartmouth that is told by Ralph Hill and his colleagues begins with those pre-College days in Connecticut and ends with the dedication of Hopkins Center in November 1962. It therefore covers a period of modern Dartmouth history that has not previously been written about in book form. Leon Burr Richardson's two-volume History of Dartmouth College was published in 1932, and although it had a final chapter carrying its story almost up to that year, it did not attempt to present a detailed historical account beyond the close of President William Jewett Tucker's administration in 1909. Prior to Professor Richardson's history, two large volumes going into much greater detail had been published by the College. History of DartmouthCollege and Hanover, N. H. Up to 1815. written almost entirely by Frederick Chase and completed after Mr. Chase's death by John K. Lord, was published in 1891. Professor Lord's companion volume, History of Dartmouth College,1815-1909, was published in 1913.

In deciding to produce a new Dartmouth history in an informal, narrative form, the editorial committee came to the conclusion that there was real need of a one-volume chronicle of the College, bringing the story up to date and covering all the high spots of Dartmouth life for nearly 200 years without going into overburdening detail. Mr. Hill's aim has been to create a book that is eminently readable while still meeting the standards of historical accuracy and perspective. The extent to which this has been accomplished is indicated by the following paragraphs from a letter President Emeritus Hopkins wrote in July 1963 after he had read the portions of the manscript written by Mr. Hill and Professor Morse:

"Leaving for a weekend of National Life directors' meetings, I am reluctantly sending back the manuscript you so kindly lent me. I say reluctantly because my most satisfying indulgence these vacation days has been to pick it up and re-read sections of what you and Stearns Morse have written.

"I am not in slightest degree gilding the lily when I say that I think this is going to be the most interesting as well as the most valuable college book I have ever read, of Dartmouth or others. I have found facts of the early College I have never known and I have in both your narrative and Stearns' had my recollections stirred to events and men I had forgotten, whom I now remember with a strange wistfulness."

It had been the hope of the editorial committee to have The College on theHill ready before Christmas. There is an outside chance that this may yet be realized, but as a substitute an advance-order arrangement is being offered by Dartmouth Publications, as described in the advertisement on this page. The entire Class of 1964 will receive the book as a gift from the fifty-year Class of 1914.

A student parade in June 1892 turns what is now known as the Inn Corner.