Dartmouth Changing and Unchanged

THE FIFTY-YEAR ADDRESS

MEN OF DARTMOUTH!" These exciting, electrifying words rang across the paneled walls of the Commons Room. They were spoken by the head football coach, Frank Cavanaugh, "The Iron Major," who rose from the ranks to become a major in the Artillery Corps during World War I, and around whose life a dramatic, thrilling moving picture was made. He continued, "Tomorrow our football team leaves for Princeton. Princeton has a fine team and so has Dartmouth, but we have a fine freshman football team too - Baxter, Thielscher, Gerrish, Trier, Switzer and Spears — to mention only a few. The team needs your support here and at Princeton. Give them a good send-off and go to the game if you can."

Little did we think that 2½ years later several of our college mates would enlist in the Dartmouth Ambulance Corps for duty in France, driving ambulances paid for by Dartmouth alumni and others. We certainly had no idea that a year later, in our senior year, after drilling and digging trenches back of the gymnasium, most of the class and the junior class would enlist in our Army and Navy to enter training camps at Plattsburgh, New York; Fort Sheridan, Illinois; Newport, Rhode Island; and Pensacola, Florida. Eighty-two per cent of the now-living members of Dartmouth 1917 who replied to a recent questionnaire had duty in the Army, Navy, and the Air Corps in World War I, and 17% had active duty in World War II. At this point I should like to say that in my opinion the amalgamation into the College of the Navy V-12 program during World War II and the subsequent addition of ROTC units of the Armed Forces have been, and continue to be, of inestimable value to our country and to our college.

Speaking of football coaches as teachers, it gives me keen pleasure, in these years of the "New Dartmouth," to recall that Coach Frank Cavanaugh's skull practice and his blackboard demonstrations of plays which our opponents had used in previous games, as well as the football teaching clinic given by Bob Blackman and his associate coaches in association with the members of the Dartmouth football squad, with a showing of moving pictures of each play in the previous Saturday's game, were some of the most instructive teaching clinics I have ever attended.

I have spent innumerable hours in reading, thinking and organizing material which I think might interest you "Men of Dartmouth" as coming from a 50- year graduate of our college. I fear that I cannot, in 15 minutes' time, do justice to what my classmates, or the College, would like me to convey to you, nor am I quite sure what the College would like a 50-anniversary graduate to talk about. I have consulted with many of my classmates on this problem, asking for their suggestions. Some are incorporated in this presentation.

One of our distinguished American lieutenant generals, the late James G. Harbord, K.C.M.G., D.S.M., LL.D., U.S. Army (Ret.), has written: "The road you travel so briskly leads out of dim antiquity, and you study the past chiefly because of its bearing on the living presence and its promise for the future."

The last history of our Class was written many years ago by our distinguished classmate, Ralph Sanborn. To bring this chronicle up to date it was decided to send a questionnaire to our classmates in which they were asked what they thought Dartmouth had contributed to their lives and accomplishments, what are or were their civic and national associations, and how many were participants in World War I and II. It is with pride, which I think you and the College will share with me, that I briefly summarize some of the information obtained from these questionnaires. Before commenting on our classmates' answers, I think a few statistics are in order.

Approximately 414 men were registered in the Class of 1917 at Dartmouth in 1913, our freshman year. Two hundred thirty-two (232) were living in 1967, at the time I wrote this paper (of whom 155 were graduates and 77 nongraduates). This is a survival rate of 58% for our Class, a 10% increase over the comparable rate in similar age groups among Caucasian Americans. My colleague, Dr. Leonard T. Kurland, who reviewed the information in the questionnaires with me, remarked, "It may be just an additional reason why, if you want to live longer than anybody else in your age group, you should have attended Dartmouth!" His secretary, who tabulated the results in each area in which questions had been asked, commented, "It has been very exciting to read over the accomplishments of members of your Class. The thing that impresses me most is their remarkable activity in the 50 years since they have graduated from the College, the love and affection they have for Dartmouth, the friends which they made while there, and the honor they have felt in being a Dartmouth man."

Then she said, with a twinkle in her eye, "None of them seems to be the least bit senile."

This calls to mind John Burroughs Words to Live By: "I still find each day too short for all of the thoughts I want to think, all the walks I want to take, all the books I want to read, and all of the friends I want to see. The longer I live the more my mind dwells upon the beauty and the wonders of the world."

Dr. Kurland has briefly summarized his review of our statistical study, saying, "This is quite a remarkable report of multiple accomplishments by a group of college graduates. It would appear that 82% of those who answered the questionnaire served in the Armed Forces during World War I (and 17% in World War II), that 64% participated in civic organizations, and an additional 42% participated in religious activities. Adding these to their occupations indicates a high motivation towards our nation and the city and communities in which they live."

I have been told that in the last two or three years approximately 80% of those graduating from Dartmouth have continued into graduate school. You will note with interest, therefore, that 45.7% of our "1917 classmates who replied to the questionnaires attended graduate college or school after leaving Dartmouth - and this was 50 years ago!

What of the College of our day? How different was it from the Dartmouth of the last few years? Well, first of all, in our day the number of students in the College was only half what it is today. There was no moving-picture house in Hanover until our senior year, and on some Saturday evenings, even in winter, we walked the five miles to White River Junction to see a movie, returning to Norwich on the midnight train, then climbing up the long hill to our dormitories on the Hanover plain.

The associated Dartmouth schools of medicine and engineering were housed in old and inadequate quarters, but they stood high in the educational programs they provided and- in the accomplishments of their graduates as did the Tuck School of business administration. Our classes were small and the faculty members were excellent teachers and warm friends. You are aware of the great developments in all of these graduate schools, especially in the Dartmouth Medical School. The College itself, of which they are a part, of course has grown apace. All the Dartmouth associated schools have received impressive recognition for the excellence of their faculties and their educational programs.

In the January 1966 issue of the DARTMOUTH ALUMNI MAGAZINE is published a copy of the EPE National Report. At the top of this article appear these words, "No memory of Alma Mater older than ' a year or so is likely to bear much resemblance to today's college or university, which in our fast moving society is precisely as it should be if higher education is TO KEEP PACE WITH AMERICA."

In the same issue appears Emeritus Professor John Hurd's ('21) "Dartmouth's 'New' Curriculum." At the top of his article appeared the statement "It's a small university in everything but name."

In the April 1966 issue of the DARTMOUTH ALUMNI MAGAZINE is a piece on "Our Coming of Age," by Dartmouth's vice president, George H. Colton. I should like to quote a sentence from it: "In stating that Dartmouth has 'come of age' I suggest that the dreams of Doctor Tucker and President Hopkins for making Dartmouth a national educational institution of the first rank have been fulfilled in these past 10 to 15 years."

May I add that President John Dickey not only has implemented these suggestions but has added many of his own, with the counsel and support of the members of the Board of Trustees, members of the faculty, and the intelligent understanding and cooperation of the student body, and has placed Dartmouth among the leading colleges in our or any other country. The correlation of various departments of the undergraduate college with those of the graduate schools has broadened the scope of undergraduate teaching and has stimulated research and provided areas for such researches to be carried out. Let us not, however, rest on our laurels, for we must plunge forward!

Few will dispute the observation that in the 50 years since our graduation the world has seen more momentous changes than have ever occurred in any similar period. The advances in medicine, aeronautics, space physiology and physics, permitting the launching of non-manned and manned satellites, the vast expansion in the field of electronics, the radio, color television; the use of antibiotic agents against dissease and in the prevention of disease in human beings and animals; open-heart and vascular surgery; organ transplantation; and the automobile - to mention only a few massive advances - have changed the course of the world in the matters of population, government, and morals, and have exerted a powerful effect upon the foundations of programs of teaching and learning in every university and college in our country. Dartmouth, like other colleges and universities the world over, has had an important part in all this.

Nor must we neglect to congratulate the planners of Dartmouth's cultural programs - what an outstanding role the Hopkins Center for the Creative Arts has played in their development! - and the multipurpose Nathaniel Leverone Field House, an auditorium for academic affairs one day and an athletic arena the next. The Kiewit Computation Center, the Bradley Mathematics Center, the Dana Biomedical Library, the Gilman Science Laboratory and the Strasenburgh Dormitory, all have been great additions to our College's physical plant and its educational and research programs.

But what of the future? I would hope that some time there will be a Dartmouth Alumni Building located not too far off- campus - possibly on land on one side or the other of Tuck Drive, where small groups of alumni could remain in residence for two or three weeks, attending college classes of their own preference as visitors or prearranged courses of lectures and demonstrations. Perhaps there might also be in temporary residence one or two older faculty members - possibly one an emeritus member of the faculty - who would lead discussions on current local, national or international topics. Such a building should have, amongst other things, sleeping rooms which would serve as a relief hostelry when the Inn is overcrowded.

I would suggest that the honorary scientific Society of the Sigma Xi - somewhat similar in its requirements for membership to those of Phi Beta Kappa but with greater emphasis on "zealous research" - be invited to install a chapter at Dartmouth.

I would recommend that the yearly meetings of class agents and class news editors be open ones which any alumnus could attend, at his own expense, of course.

In the latest announcement of the programs for the classes holding reunions the week after commencement, the continuation of panel discussions and lectures by distinguished members of the Dartmouth or other collegiate faculties, from government, industry and labor, similar to the remarkable program organized and presented so successfully by the Dartmouth alumni of the Classes of 1935, 1936 and 1937 last year at their Reunion, is to be noted with the greatest pleasure.

I submit, finally, that the College ought to participate actively in one way or another in the fall outings which many classes hold in Hanover or nearby villages each fall. College participation? How? Simply by arranging tours of new or recently new buildings of the College, by a lecture or two on the new ways of the College: its programs and its philosophy of the future.

Well, now we come down almost to the sunset gun. I hope that my informal short visit with you has been at least as pleasant for you as it has been for me. Perhaps you have compared me with the grandstand quarterback, who in a loud and commanding voice repeatedly shouted out his notion of what play the team's quarterback ought to use - counsel which fortunately was ignored by the quarterback. Despite the unheeded advice of the grandstand strategist, the team managed to advance the ball up the field to the 5-yard line. At that point one of the spectators sitting near the grandstand quarterback yelled to him: "What are they going to do now?"

That vociferous personage simply smiled and said, "Well, I've got them up to the 5-yard line and now they are on their own."

Now, as speaker for my Dartmouth Class of 1917 I have saved for the last the next important part of my remarks, which is simply to convey our thanks to Dartmouth College and to its distinguished president, John Sloan Dickey, who has not only followed in the footsteps but has walked side by side in the company of such great spirits as Presidents William Jewett Tucker and Ernest Martin Hopkins. What Dartmouth has been, is, and will be is an indefinable essence of rare preeminence which imparts distinction indeed to the cultural fabric of our nation, as compounded by the works of the men who have guided the College as well as the men whose lives and deeds have been shaped by what Dartmouth has conferred upon them. We gain honor from the fact that we are Dartmouth men. And the bond of attachment is massive and enduring: as one of my friends observed, no one ever graduates from Dartmouth, even though he may receive its diploma and degree.

Dr. Waltman Walters '17