Dartmouth Days—60 Years Ago

This is the third of four installments of the letters written home by Mr. Leavitt during his undergraduate years at Dartmouth. The previous two installments dealt with freshman and sophomore years; this month's letters describe some of the experiences of junior year, 1914-15.

FALL

After two weeks here things are more comfortable and settled and we are back in the same old rut George Paine and I are going to room in 16 Hubbard Hall this year, a double corner room that will cost us $170. Hope the dorm will not be noisy as the walls are wooden and our musical talents run to one gramaphone, one mandolin, and two pianos lam back working in the Grill again. Also Russell and I have been working in the Administration Office; it might come in handy!

Delta Alpha hazing has begun in earnest and some of the campus activities are original and amusing. Between halves at the football game yesterday there was a greased pig contest. A greased pig was brought out in a box and let loose. The poor little pig was so frightened that he stood still and about 40 Freshmen in pyjamas piled on him. His foot was crushed and the contest was declared a failure. One amusing stunt was where a nursemaid wheeling a baby in a carriage was flirting with a policeman. In the meantime the baby was kidnapped During the last few days it has entered my head that I should like to quit the Grill. It has been so hot and the work has been so dirty, and the hours so long, and I have a cold in my nose.... that I have got a little discouraged. I cannot afford to stop that source of income, however. Perhaps I will be all right again as soon as I can forget it.

Hazing was finished yesterday by the "Chamber of Horrors." It was some horrors, and when I felt my stomach feel funny I got out. Among other things of a similar nature, one of the Freshman was led in with nothing on except his epidermis, and blind-folded. After being paddled a bit he was laid on his back with his mouth open. Then the fellows cleared their throats as if to spit, and at the same time a mass of gooey orange pulp and egg was slipped into his mouth in a handkerchief. Great is the power of imagination!

Things are beginning to boom for "On to Princeton," the game being next Saturday. I don't believe I shall go. $20 looks better in my pocket than out of it. We hope to christen Princeton's new stadium just as we christened Harvard's in 1903. . . . Ben, George and I walked down to the June last night about suppertime. We went to the movies. There was quite a bunch of fellows there enjoying themselves. Whenever a picture came on the screen of a fellow and a girl kissing, various descriptive sounds were heard. Once an advertising picture of women's underwear was shown, and you should have heard the sounds that went up.

This Saturday we hope to trim the pants off Syracuse at Boston. Several hundred will go down from here by special train. There is a foot of snow here and great sleighing.

My Thanksgiving broke up the time so that the next weeks will go fast. It is the custom for the instructors to pile up the exams and other work just before Christmas, so doubtless we shall be able to keep busy.... The snow has completely disappeared but the skating is great.

WINTER

Back again in the same old place, with the same four walls, one floor and one ceiling. Most of the fellows will come back from the vacation on the 9 o'clock or the 2 a.m. train. They are welcome to it. It was cold riding up this morning, sitting next to the window, and tonight it will be worse. Coming back from the June we decided to walk up to Hangover. Like a couple of Freshmen we got mixed in direction and not until we reached Hartford, Vt. did we realize that we had followed along the White River instead of the Connecticut. Then we cut across the hills and completed a six mile walk. Nothing like experience.

We have had bitter cold weather. It has been 40 degrees below, and in Barre, Vt. it was 52 below. And still the farmers say we are going to have an open winter.

There has been a scare about a shortage of water during the past week and it was rumored that the College might have to close immediately after the semester exams. At White River Junction they have been using water from the White River, and several cases of typhoid have broken out. A number of fellows have deliberately turned on the shower baths and left them running all night, hoping that the College would have to close. Consequently notices appeared in the dormitories to the effect that any student caught would be permanently separated from the College, and signed, "Craven Laycock, Dean." Evidently Nature sided with Craven for after a short and heavy snow this morning it began to rain.

Altho it has been snowing this afternoon, the skiing and tobogganing have been great. The Outing Club has built a new ski jump, on which they are jumping 60 feet in practice. I gained enough courage to take a little jump, but slid down the hill on the seat of my trousers. One fellow got water on the knee and another knocked out a couple of teeth. This week there have been toboggans on the Golf Links, dozens of them. They cost $5, but George and I are thinking of buying one.

I was delayed in writing this as I have been off on a peerade. Saturday night, after officiating at a fraternity banquet, Win Knowles and I changed our clothes, rolled some grub in our blankets and with our skis and poles started out for Moose Mt., nine miles away. It was just after midnight when we started up over Balch Hill, and dark. When within two miles of the Cabin we lost our way in the woods, and after floundering in the snow until 3:30 decided to make camp. This we did by making a fire, cutting some fir branches and spreading our blankets over them. At 4:30 we lay down to get some sleep, but it was so cold and bumpy that at 6:30 we started for the Cabin again. We ate our dinner there Sunday, started for Holt's Ledge, got lost again, slept in the woods once more. We finally took the train at Thetford and came home ... and glad to be here.

Did you see in the paper about the annual appropriation made by the State to Dartmouth being held up because some alumnus believed certain professors should not be allowed to teach socialistic, anarchistic, nihilistic, atheistic ideas? Apparently they referred to George Ray Wicker. I had a course in Public Finance with him last year and am now taking Labor, so if I exhibit any strange and radical ideas you will know where they came from. Some of his statements are startling, but they make you think. For instance, he believes that in a century or more our marriage system will be entirely changed, that those women who can be good wives without being good mothers will be the former, and those who can be good mothers only will not tie themselves to one man in marriage. Fie has done more to getting the fellows to see the serious problems of life than any prof I ever saw. Fie looks like a combination of Wilson, Lincoln and an ape.

Prof. William Howard Taft lectured here three nights last week and Ben and I went to all of them. I had received a bad impression of him two years ago, but have changed my mind entirely. He has a fine personality, with an infectious laugh that begins with a hiccough. There is no question, however, but that he represents the old conservative school of stand-patters. He spoke sincerely and convincingly and had an audience of 1300 every night.... Friday afternoon there was a reception given to Taft in the Trophy Room at the gym, so I shined my shoes, donned a smile, and went down. I shook hands with Gov. Spaulding and Bill, and haven't washed that hand since

There has been an epidemic of pink eye recently. A number of Freshmen deliberately rubbed their fingers in the eyes of Wendell's roommate ... he had it ... and then in their own. They soon came down with it and had to go home. Thus do some people appreciate a college education.

SPRING

The Dartmouth Christian Association is conducting a campaign lead by J. A. Whitmore, a strong speaker with a convincing personality and a message that has real stuff. I have just come from a ten-minute conference with him, in which he told me what the matter with me is. He told me I must do something, ally myself with some sort of service, and get a grip on myself. I remember Pa told me 1 would learn a good deal in college and I believe I have. Thanks to a good home and its influences I feel that I have good foundations and good ideals. Someday I'll make good.

I have just returned from the annual Wet-Down, saw the Freshman-Sophomore scrap for the keg, drank some of the lemonade, ran thru the gauntlet and received several good whacks, and sat on our Senior fence.... We had a Hubbard dorm delegation at Church tonight as five of us went over. The minister told us not to get drunk during Commencement, etc.

Free barber service outdoors.

Sartorially resplendent, students await the "football peeraae" tram at Norwich station.

The Grill crew.