President Kemeny's Response

MR. SECRETARY, you asked me what I think of the Class of 1921. I must confess that there have been occasions when Ort Hicks has dropped modest hints that the Class of '21 may be slightly above average. I did not realize, however, until you recounted the many achievements of your Class just how distinguished it is, and all I can say in answer to what you said is, "Indeed, you have got it and you have every right to shout it."

I also want to reassure you that the 50-Year Orator has every right in the world to express the strongest possible opinions, but you personally, even if you were not the 50-Year Orator, have certainly earned the right to those opinions and anytime you express them the President of Dartmouth will listen.

I would, therefore, like to comment on the two topics that you have raised. I will comment briefly on ROTC and at somewhat greater length on the very troubling issue to which we are all trying to give our utmost wisdom.

As you know, the decision to phase out ROTC was taken about a year after you left the Board of Trustees and about a year before I became President of the College. However, I was present at Dartmouth and I did participate in the debate. I certainly would be the last one to minimize the importance of civilian input into the military. Anyone who grew up in Central Europe realizes the tremendous importance of such input, and indeed I remember a very eloquent speech by another member of the faculty also from Central Europe emphasizing exactly that point. I know that this is an issue that disturbs not only you. The survey of alumni showed very clearly that it is the single issue on which the majority of alumni feel that the College made a mistake. I wish I could tell you what were the debated reasons pro and con ROTC, but I think I would be unfair if I addressed myself to that because very frankly the debate was not a debate on ROTC but on the war in Vietnam.

I know that your Class had its undergraduate career interrupted by World War I as my class just 25 years later had its career interrupted by World War 11. I'm sure your classmates went off to war with the very strong feeling that you were doing exactly the right thing in defending your country as did my classmates 25 years later. The great difficulty with the war in Vietnam is best shown by a fairly recent poll by Mr. Gallup, if I recall, indicating that today a majority of Americans have serious doubts about the Tightness of the Vietnam war. I want to assure you that this generation of students is prepared to die for its country. It is not prepared to kill for its country unless it is convinced that the cause is just. And on this question no one can tell them whether it is just or it isn't. It is the most difficult moral decision any human being has to make and this has led to the tremendous emotion, to which you yourself have referred, that has torn this country apart. All I can say is that if you respond to this by saying that there is no logical connection between that feeling and the vote to abolish ROTC, I would agree with you, but man is not guided by logic alone. Man is very heavily guided by emotion, and therefore this is an issue that cannot receive a fair hearing on any campus today until President Nixon succeeds in his announced goal to disengage us from the war.

Concerning the second topic, I did a little bit of historical research and I would like to read you certain words that your Class may remember because they were the first words Ernest Martin Hopkins spoke to the Class of 1921 at Dartmouth's opening Convocation, September 20, 1917. He said: "The nature of man is such that departures from the accustomed routines come only by effort and often with difficulty. We shrink from change. We argue for what is and view with apprehension the possibility of what is not." Those were the words of Ernest Martin Hopkins.

Mr. Secretary, you mentioned William Jewett Tucker and Ernest Martin Hopkins as the two Presidents who greatly influenced the Classes present here. They were certainly two of the greatest Presidents in Dartmouth's history. I know that the Classes present here cherish the traditions that these Presidents established for Dartmouth. But let me underline that it was they who established the traditions, and you establish a tradition by bringing about a change, not by leaving things unchanged. Indeed, they are two of Dartmouth's greatest Presidents because they made the greatest changes in the history of the College, and they were right in the changes they made. I am not trying to say that any President needs simply to change an institution to become great. The crucial thing, and only history can judge, is that these two men's judgment was exactly right. They made the changes at the right time and the right place.

Even at that time, you will find, there were changes for which their contemporaries criticized those Presidents. For example, it is told in the annals of Dartmouth that President Tucker was severely criticized by some alumni for introducing hot and cold running water and central heating at the College. It was felt that this would absolutely spoil the rugged male individualism of Dartmouth students and they would never recover from that change. Yet I think that in historical perspective this somehow does not go to the essence of the institution. He also made changes that very much went to the essence of the institution. When he took over Dartmouth there were 78 students in the freshman class. Sixteen years later, at the end of his Presidency, there were 350 students in the freshman class, and I do not believe that any President is going to make that drastic a change in Dartmouth again. President Tucker changed it from a small local institution to a major national institution of education—a change that could have completely destroyed Dartmouth if it had been wrong. Instead, he is noted as the founder of the modern Dartmouth. On the other hand, if he had made the decision to move Dartmouth College, let us say, to New Haven, I have no question at all in my mind that Dartmouth would no longer have been Dartmouth.

Therefore, the very difficult question that has to be asked today, is whether a possible move to admit women as degree candidates at Dartmouth is the right move. I'm sure it is a move more drastic than hot and cold running water, but I would like to ask whether it is a move like enlarging the freshman class and changing the composition of the student body from a local to a national institution, or whether it is as disastrous as changing the place of the institution that has determined the character and nature of this College.

One can look at many arguments, and I'm sure that none of them is totally convincing to anyone. Statistics, of course, can be used on all sides. The admissions figures you mentioned are true, and yet if one looks over a slightly longer period, one finds that for over a five-year period Dartmouth has just held its own; we have almost exactly the same number of male applicants that we did five years ago and we are very happy with that. Princeton has increased about 20% over that period. Yale was doing even better until last year, when they had the spectacular drop that you correctly mentioned, and it is very hard to know whether it is that the appeal is no longer what it was last year or whether it is their new deferred tuition plan that makes Yale the most expensive institution in the Ivy League.

I think, talking about statistics, 1 would like to mention a survey that has recently been made, at request of the Board of Trustees, among students admitted to Dartmouth but not yet her? and among high school students, but particularly about students just admitted to Dartmouth. We surveyed both students who were admitted and are coming and students who were admitted and are going elsewhere. One very interesting fact is that the location of Dartmouth is the single greatest factor both in convincing students to come here and in convincing them not to come here. I think this is as it should be. because this is one of the characteristics that makes Dartmouth a unique institution. One of the sad facts is that out of 100 students accepted and coming to Dartmouth, when they were asked on a long list to check all the reasons why they chose Dartmouth- and most of them checked a dozen reasons or so—only nine of the 100 said that the fact that it is an all-male institution was one of the reasons why they selected Dartmouth. It is a very sad fact that while in another age students came to colleges like Dartmouth because it was all male, and I myself attended an all-male institution by choice, today the students come to Dartmouth for many excellent reasons but in spite of the fact that it is an all- male institution. There is no overwhelming argument here that can settle the things you have said, but I do want to say that although I agree with you that Dartmouth will not fail to attract first-rate students, I must report that most of them are very unhappy on this one score after they come here.

The comment on women's colleges is more difficult to evaluate. I am convinced, whatever else may be wrong with coeducation, that if we do go ahead, Dartmouth will attract absolutely first-rate women students. I am not convinced that the same is true about women's institutions. My daughter may feel quite proud at receiving a degree from Yale, but I'm not quite sure how I would feel about my son getting a degree from Smith College, in spite of the fact that both my wife and I have a very high opinion of that institution. I would like to say that what happens at other institutions is really not relevant to Dartmouth because Dartmouth is a unique institution.

I do recognize the worries about the financial implications of any new plan and this, of course, is a major concern the Board of Trustees. The Third Century Fund figures were totally accurate, but I do want to emphasize, as you did yourself, that these funds were specifically raised for the purpose of being expended during this period. As you will recall, there was a $6- milion expendable fund in the Third Century Fund from the very beginning. In a sense figures are misleading, tough they are totally true, because it gives the impression that Dartmouth is somehow dipping into capital during this period, which is not true. During the same five-year period that you have mentioned, through next year, Dartmouth will have added $42 million to its endowment, which will increase the endowment by 32% in five years; and although I completely agree with you that there are difficult times ahead for all institutions of higher education, I think a 32% increase in the endowment in five years is not exactly the road to bankruptcy.

But finally, the question is really very simple. It is complex and you can ask any number of questions and argue any number of points, but the final argument has to be over one single issue—what coeducation will do to the quality of education at Dartmouth and what it will do to the nature of the institution. And to me the two are so closely coupled that I think of them as one issue. I am firmly convinced that today Dartmouth offers the finest undergraduate education in the country. I think this is its principal role. I would dedicate myself to continuing this and I see unparalleled opportunities in the next decade because we can offer a fringe benefit here at Dartmouth that none of our major competitors can offer, namely our magnificent location, with clean air, water, and beautiful scenery that money cannot possibly buy. And yet the question is whether we are or are not giving the best possible education to this generation of students, with their need to prepare themselves for the life they will lead, if they are educated in isolation from women. This is the issue with which the Trustees must struggle, and it is probably the most difficult and most decisive issue that has faced this Board or has faced any Board in many, many years.

I would like to assure you that I have served Dartmouth College for 17 years and, as you know, I truly love this institution. I would not knowingly do anything that would hurt it. It is a most difficult decision that the Board has to make, and it will be made by the Board of Trustees where such a fundamental decision must be made.

I would just like to say one thing to you, John. So long as Dartmouth can continue to attract to its Board of Trustees men of your caliber, I feel that the decision is in the best of all possible hands.

At the 1946 Class Banquet, Head AgentJim O'Neil presents to President Kemeny a "check" symbolic of 25-year classgiving. Also shown are Reunion GivingCo-Chairmen Stan Feldberg and JackWhitman, and Mrs. Walter R. Peterson,wife of New Hampshire's governor.