The 50-Year Address

THIS is indeed a happy and auspicious occasion. It is even a unique occasion because never again will Dartmouth College hold its Bicentennial Commencement, nor will it ever again begin its Third Century. It is noteworthy also as the second occasion on which Lord and Lady Dartmouth have seen fit to visit Hanover and have honored us with their presence. The first such visit occurred when the Earl of Dartmouth with the Countess and his daughter, Lady Dorothy Legge, came to Hanover in 1904 for the laying of the cornerstone of Dartmouth Hall which had been nearly destroyed by fire.

The year 1969 is also significant as the 150th anniversary of the United States Supreme Court decision in the Dartmouth College Case, which brought such fame to Dartmouth College and to Daniel Webster. Dartmouth is no longer a small college but there are still those who love it. It is therefore a rare privilege for me to be here at this time and I can't tell you how grateful I am for this invitation to address you all.

First, let me, on behalf of the members of the Class of 1919, salute our fellow alumni who graduated before we did, especially those from the Classes of 1914, 1909, 1904 and 1899. It would be impudent for me to try to give advice or counsel to such a group because you are older, wiser and more experienced, and you have endured longer than we of the Class of 1919. It would be more fitting for us to receive counsel from you. The fact that so many of you are here today is proof enough of the physical stamina of Dartmouth men and supports the wellrecognized tradition so long current in song and story that Dartmouth men do truly have the granite of New Hampshire in their muscles and their brain. God willing, we look forward to seeing you all again five, ten and further years hence. As I have tossed in my bed night after night, pondering the appropriate remarks for this occasion, my mind wandered back to that day 200 years ago when Eleazar Wheelock and his band of Indians mounted the Hanover Plain to found Dartmouth College. They had optimism and faith but modest prospects, serious want of creature comforts, and were dependent mainly upon their "Gradus adParnassum, a bible and a drum and 500 gallons of New England Rum!" which history has told us about.

Conditions are very different today than they were in 1769. They are very different today than they were 54 years ago when our Class first came to Hanover in September 1915. We were a heterogeneous group and came, some of us, from faraway places, judging by standards of those days. We qualified for college in schools differing widely in excellence, varying from the most sophisticated preparatory schools to the most modest country high schools. Our Class included accomplished scholars, proven athletes, and ordinary high school graduates, but earnest enthusiasts all. We came to Hanover by train, first to White River Junction, where we changed for a local to the Norwich-Hanover station. A few might have come by horse and buggy or even by automobile. Many of the members of the graduating class of 1969 here today have hardly ever traveled by train. Hardly any of them have ever slept in a Pullman car. We arrived at Norwich in early afternoon, climbed into large horsedrawn buses for the ride up the hill.

In those days the students lived in dormitories or fraternity houses. Running water, electric lights, inside plumbing, and central heating were available but few other modern conveniences were provided. There were no telephones, no movies, no radios, no television sets, no theaters, no girls, no liquor — not even beer! We walked five miles to White River Junction or Lebanon on Saturday night when we wanted to dance. There was no field house, no swimming pool, no hockey rink, no Hopkins Center for cultural entertainment, and Dartmouth had the doubtful distinction of providing the largest gymnasium and the smallest library of any college in the country. There was a rustic setting with the hills, the woods, and in the wintertime, the weather, the snow and cold. Skiing along the roads, across the fields, over the golf course and through the woods was a favorite outdoor pastime. Skiing was not so well developed or organized in those days as it is now but it served as a delightful daytime activity to supplement an evening's entertainment with poker and bridge in a smoke-filled room.

Much time was given to sitting around in old-fashioned bull sessions. Many evenings were spent at the piano singing songs, popular songs, Dartmouth songs, even ribald songs and this led to a camaraderie, sociability and friendship which did much to contribute to the Dartmouth Spirit. One of my clearest and dearest recollections is the memory of my walking across the campus from the Beta house to Webster Hall on a Saturday midnight under the light of a full moon with the temperature 20 degrees below zero and hearing the snow creak under my footsteps. We were young, we were happy, we were eager, we were satisfied, we were not conscious of any hardship, nor did we suffer under a feeling of deprivation — we would not have had it any other way. Do not be mistaken - we would not willingly submit to a similar standard of living again today for anything in the world, nor would we expect our sons to submit to such hardships, or even our daughters.

Young people have a strong tendency to look forward hopefully and enthusiastically to the days ahead but, as age advances, the tendency is rather to look backward. When we graduated in 1919 we all looked forward but few of us looked forward as far as our 50th Reunion. At our graduation, the 50th Reunion Class looked much older to us then, than our Class does today. Many of them were old and bent. Their steps were slow and they were escorted around the campus by their children and grandchildren. People in their seventies are more vigorous today than they used to be. There are members of the Class of 1919 today who came to this reunion with golf clubs and are still full of the competitive spirit.

Four hundred and forty-one of us entered college in 1915 with the prospect of four uninterrupted, fruitful years. The war in Europe had started the summer before but its effects were hardly noticed, though they gradually were spreading across America. Classmates dropped out during sophomore year for war service of one kind or another, often in the armed forces of France, England or Canada. The Dartmouth Ambulance Unit was organized in 1917 and sailed to France. Men enlisted in the United States Army, others went into the Navy and others still went into the Signal Corps. College life was dramatically interrupted. Athletic programs were abandoned. A student training program was instituted and the campus and the surrounding country was cut up and defaced by trenches and barbed wire.

After the war the Class and the College began to reassemble. I was lucky; I left college at mid-year in my junior year and returned January 1, 1919 and was given enough war credit to graduate on schedule. We graduated and went our way to various places, various professions, various occupations, and with various degrees of success, and on the average the results in later years were highly satisfactory. Despite the disruption of war our class spirit survived and, although it sagged for a time while we were busy establishing ourselves in different communities and making our way in the world, it was revived in later years with renewed vigor.

Tuition was $140 a year, dormitory rent was comparable, and food could be had for $5 to $6 a week. The College was less than half its present size.

The college archivist has revealed that there were 441 men enrolled in the Class of 1919 in September 1915. Of that number, 219 men graduated, 120 at the appointed time and 99 later; 222 did not graduate. Of the total class of 441, 253 or 55 percent are still alive; the proportion of graduates and of non-graduates is the same. Dr. Jacobson, a research associate for population statistics for the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, in response to my inquiry wrote that, of a group of 441 white men, aged 18 in 1915, he would expect 204, 46 percent, to be alive today. Of a similar group graduating today, 309 or 70% would be expected to survive until their 50th Reunion in 2019. If you hope to improve the likelihood of a long life it is obvious that it is important to go to Dartmouth College and enter today, instead of in 1919.

Of our class of 441 men, 312 are listed as having served in military service in World War I, of whom ten were killed and three died of influenza or pneumonia. So far, 117 Class of 1919 sons have entered Dartmouth.

The Class of 1919 entered Dartmouth College, was guided, protected and disciplined by a rigid set of rules and regulations established by an organized group called the Sophomore Class! These restraints, as established, enforced a code of conduct which made life easier for the freshmen by dictating their almost every action. Freshmen were required to wear freshman caps, were obligated to keep off the grass, and were forbidden to smoke on campus. Chapel attendance was compulsory. Delta Alpha week was a period of discipline, criticism, and harassment, carried out in a spirit of fun if it was accepted with good grace, but with punitive consequences for the rebellious. Occasionally the irresponsibles, the incorrigibles, the non-conformists, sometimes even the dedicated individualists, were identified and chastened by being dunked in the horse watering trough in front of the Hanover Inn.

The 50th Anniversary Class may prefer to look backward but we must be realistic, we must pay attention to the present and we must attend to the future where we will spend the rest of our lives. Let us therefore now salute the graduation class.

The Dartmouth graduating class of 1969, as well as the graduating classes of all other colleges in America, and even the world, are probably the best prepared, the most highly selected, and the best trained of such groups of any period of history. There is every reason to expect outstanding performance from them. The graduating class is also faced with some of the greatest challenges of modern times. There are problems to be solved, such as the war in Vietnam, the injustice of racial bigotry, the population explosion, the ever-increasing money inflation, and growing threats to many of our basic freedoms. These are only a few. There are those people who criticize America and the American way of life, the free enterprise system, big business and big government. Despite criticism which is being raised in many quarters, conditions in America can not be as bad as some people seem to think they are because nowhere else in the world and at no other time in history has a society offered a higher standard of living, more opportunity to its citizens, more solace to the weak and frail, more protection from the law, more chance to make a living and to prosper, more opportunity to speak, to write and to worship as one pleases.

We have been witnessing for several years a growing movement of student unrest in the colleges and the universities of America, of the world — an unrest, a revolt approaching even a bloody revolution. This is part of a worldwide activity. It would seem that there is a concerted movement, a centralized conspiracy which has successfully convinced a small proportion of the students to lead this movement and they have attracted an alarming number of active followers. In this age of a sophisticated and affluent society it has become a permissive society and civil disobedience seems to be widely condoned. The restraining influences of the Sophomore Class are not enough to control them. The threat of a dunking in the horse trough does not deter them. Dartmouth has not been threatened so soon, nor so violently as have other institutions, but the threat is here. If lawlessness and anarchy continue to grow, academic freedom will disappear and the institutions of higher learning will be destroyed. Academic freedom is being threatened much more dangerously by anarchy within institutions of learning themselves, than it ever can be by the police, the National Guard, and the criminal courts. The right of dissent must be preserved, the decisions must come from orderly discussion and debate, not from threats, physical assaults, and criminal blackmail. To preserve our rights is the responsibility of everybody. To preserve America and to preserve Dartmouth calls for concerted action on the part of college students and faculty, administration, and Trustees. Let us stand firm and fight to the death, if necessary, for the American way of life which has brought such rich rewards to so many people. The man who rocks the boat sometimes tips it over and it becomes harder than ever to reach the desired objective.

Considerable time has already been spent dwelling upon the past and particularly discussing events and conditions 50 years ago. Let us now turn to the future and consider what Dartmouth College may be like when the present graduating class assembles for its 50th Reunion in the year 2019 A.D. It would take a brave man indeed to attempt to foresee the future with any degree of assurance but, since I will not be here 50 years hence, I dare to speak. There are a few features that may be predicted with assurance.

The student body will probably be about twice the size it is today. It is now twice as large as it was 50 years ago. It will contain a higher proportion of black students and other minority groups than it does today. That has already been promised. It will contain a substantial proportion of women - that is threatening. The Dartmouth spirit will change its form and lose some of its belligerence. It will be no less sincere but it will be more mature and sedate, the result of sophistication, greater travel, the frequency with which students will exchange to and from Dartmouth and other institutions.

It is safe to assume that the outward appearance of the College campus will remain very much as it is today and that the College Green and the Senior Fence will not be violated. The buildings around the Green - Dartmouth Hall, Rollins Chapel and Webster Hall, will be preserved in outward appearances no doubt, although their function may continue to change. The Baker Library is a magnificent building which personifies the intellectual life of the College and will remain as an intellectual symbol of classical learning. Many generations of Dartmouth men sincerely hope that the row of buildings along Main Street, Parkhurst Hall, Robinson Hall and the Commons will survive unchanged. Hopkins Center is just coming into the full realization of its potential and the Hanover Inn has recently been rebuilt. These certainly can be expected to remain 50 years hence. The College will grow horizontally and spread out farther and farther into the country because there is no need or tendency for skyscrapers in this setting.

The College will remain a free and independent institution depending, however, more and more upon federal subsidy to meet the ever-growing financial needs. Tuition will continue to climb as a result of advancing inflation. Dartmouth will certainly be recognizable and will maintain many of its outstanding characteristics 50 years from now. Let us hope that the new President, whose selection is now under consideration, the future Trustees, continuing faculty and the student body will be maintained at the same high state of efficiency, intelligence, integrity, motivation which has characterized the College for the past 200 years and that these characteristics will endure for many years to come. Let us hope the changes which occur will occur in the form of a gradual, orderly progressive evolution rather than a fiery, violent and destructive revolution.

The Class of 1919 expresses its complete confidence in the Class of 1969, feeling certain that they will accept the challenge and carry on. We pay our re spects to a new group which has made its presence on campus, the Students Backing Dartmouth - the S.B.D. and applaud their motto - Dartmouth, love it or leave it!

Dr. Robert M. Stecher '19