1923 – Great Class of a Great College

To the Class of 1973, the Class of 1923 extends a hearty welcome to the ranks of alumni – and now of alumnae. We wish all of you good health, happiness, and the satisfaction of achievement in some worthwhile undertaking. You are the beneficiaries of the past, the trustees of the present, and the architects of the future. As such, we wish not only the best for you, but also the best from you.

To the reunion classes who preceded us, we extend heartfelt thanks for the rich, strong legacy which you bestowed upon us and the College. Our salute to you is one of appreciation, admiration, and affection.

To President Kemeny and the members of his administrative staff, to the Faculty, and to all those others who are so dedicatedly engaged in the day-to-day functioning of the College, 1923 expresses deep gratitude. We realize much more clearly with each passing year the awesomeness of both your opportunities and responsibilities – to Dartmouth, to our Nation, and to mankind.

Our Class is much more keenly aware of and grateful for the contribution which your predecessors of a half century ago made to us than we were at the time of our graduation in 1923.

It was William James who wrote that, "The great use of life is to spend it for something which will outlast it." The Administration and Faculty of our day put life to its greatest use — just as you are doing today. We are comforted by the knowledge that with your guidance, dedication, and understanding, Dartmouth College, the Dartmouth spirit, and future generations of Dartmouth men and women will further fulfill today's promise for the future.

But now I find myself launched on this talk before I have completed my own personal countdown.

Having been on the receiving end of more 50-year class orations than memory can recall, I am under no illusions as to the degree of your anticipation of this one.

Nevertheless, I have taken my assignment seriously by reading and rereading Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends andInfluence People. I have also reread the various inspiring histories of Dartmouth. Additionally, I have written to Mike McGean – the source of all alumni affairs wisdom – to ask his advice. "Make your talk informative, inspiring, entertaining, and brief," wrote Mike. I can promise only brevity.

Indeed, lest I become a Vox Clamantis in Deserto. I had best get on with my remarks.

I have chosen as my modest and restrained title that of "1923 – A Great and Unique Class of a Great and Unique College."

The evidence on all counts is overwhelming.

First as to the College:

a. Its early pioneering and missionary spirit, as embraced in its founding.

b. Its concept of teaching its students to help others.

c. Its location in the wilderness of the far north.

d. Its financial and physical struggle for survival.

e. Its legal fight for independence and the sanctity of its charter as recorded in the Dartmouth College Case.

f. Its rebirth under Dr. Tucker.

g. Its growth from a strictly New England to a cosmopolitan college – and the energizing of its alumni spirit under Dr. Hopkins.

h. Its growth in academic excellence under Dr. Dickey.

i. Its broadened and innovative progress under Dr. Kemeny.

j. Its emphasis always on development of the whole man.

k. Its recognition of men for what they are and do, rather than for what they have.

l. Its steadfast commitment to excellence in teaching, learning, and doing.

m. Its emphasis on the liberating arts and undergraduate education.

All this – and much more – contributes to Dartmouth's greatness and uniqueness.

And now what of the Class of 1923, which entered Dartmouth in the year of the College's 150 th Anniversary, which has been part of the College beyond its 200 th Anniversary or for more than a quarter of its proud history.

It was the first class to enter the College after World War I. The age spread of its members covered more than a decade, from pink-cheeked 16-year-olds to grizzled 27-year-old war veterans.

It was by far Dartmouth's largest entering class, numbering 698. In 1919, it made up 45% of the entire student enrollment.

Although Dartmouth justifiably prided itself on being a national, and indeed, international institution, its student body in 1919 represented 41 states and six foreign countries, as contrasted to a complete 50- state roster and some 36 foreign countries on today's campus.

Indicative of the impact of inflation and rising educational costs over the last half century is the information gleaned from the 1919 College Catalog that tuition was $200 annually and that (I quote from the catalog), "By closest economy, it is possible to keep expenses down to $500, although for the student not forced to economize, $650 is a realistic figure, and the few students of great affluence could spend as much as $800." We considered this latter group to be "the last of the big spenders."

And so it was that in September of 1919, 698 of our Class arrived on the beautiful Dartmouth campus, presided over by the gleaming white buildings of Dartmouth Row.

We embarked for Hanover from different places, with different backgrounds, in different circumstances. All of us brought with us our own youthful hopes, anticipations, and more or less clearly defined aspirations. We were crossing the threshold from boyhood to manhood.

I recall my own experience most vividly. I had been granted a $400 scholarship, had already been promised a job .waiting table in Commons. After a tearful goodbye from my mother and sisters, my father walked me down to the railroad station in New Rochelle, New York, where I was to take the train to White River Junction. I sensed that my father wished to give me some heartfelt, well-thought-out paternal advice, but all he managed, just as I boarded the train, was, "Be a good boy." And that sums it all up in any case, because the highest praise anyone can bestow on any man is not that he is a rich man, or a successful man, but that he is "a good man."

For me, who had never been north of Stamford, Connecticut, who had never been away from home, Dartmouth was a new world, a wondrous world, and a happy, helpful passage to the after-college world.

Our indoctrination to Dartmouth, her history, and her spirit also contributed to the uniqueness of our Class. Within a month following our arrival, after buying our furniture and freshman caps, after our Delta Alpha initiation by the sophisticated sophomores, after our introduction to the peanut fights and self-provided sound effects for the silent movies at the Nugget, after our first – and, for me – our last officially conducted Outing Club hike under the leadership of a long-legged, redheaded Outing Club hiker who-had some of the sadism of a Marine Corps sergeant we were exposed to and participated in Dartmouth's Sesquicentennial celebration.

Many of my classmates will recall more clearly than I the impressive events of that exciting celebration, starting with Dartmouth Night on Friday, October 17. Vivid in my memory is the torchlight parade in which we participated, the march past Dartmouth Row brilliantly festooned with electric lights, past the Inn and the old watering trough, the pause in front of President Hopkins' home and a rousing Wah-hoo-Wah – a cheer the demise of which hopefully has been exaggerated and the terminus under a big tent at the south end of the campus.

I recall, too, the excitement created by the appearance of a flying machine over the campus in the Saturday sunshine, and the hard-fought, come-from-behind 19-13 victory over the national championship contender football team of Penn State. I recall the impressive Sunday morning chapel service in memory of those who gave their lives in World War I.

I must confess that I remembered little of the speeches throughout those four days, even though they were directed to our Class of 1923. A reading of the 150th Anniversary history recalls their content. Speakers from the Class of 1873, fifty years senior to us, spoke of the tremendous changes which had taken place converting Dartmouth from a small northern New England to a great cosmopolitan college. They predicted that our four years at Dartmouth would be the happiest of our lives, that we would form lasting friendships, and that in the years to come our proudest boast would be that we were Dartmouth men – and they were right. They urged us never to forget Dartmouth – to stand by it – and we have heeded their plea.

They told us we were more sophisticated – more assured – healthier – and better dressed than had been their Class of 1873. Except for the "better dressed" bit, we can say the same of the Class of 1973 as compared to 1923.

And just as the speakers of that day predicted that we would return to the Old College in order to touch the spirit of the place and to recall many happy memories, so do we forecast that you of 1973 will return often and be refreshed.

One paragraph from 150 Years of DartmouthCollege especially bears repeating I quote: "Some of those who gleefully attended the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the College with the becoming joviality and sprightliness of youth, will now hobble into the arena of the 200th, to smille toothless response to the plaudits of a new generation of the gleeful."

The class of 1923 completely rejects that description. Admittedly, our Warrants is running out. Admittedly, our hot Hashes are turning lukewarm. Admittedly, at a time when Detroit has more recalls, we have less. Admittedly, we no longer have enough wax to burn the candle at both ends. And the verdict following our latest physical check-up that we are "sound as a dollar" is no longer reassuring.

Rather, we are comforted by the philosophy so eloquently expressed by General Douglas Mac Arthur when he wrote, "Youth is not entirely a time of life, it is a state of mind. Nobody grows old by merely living a number of years. People grow old by deserting their ideals. You are as young as your faith, as old as your doubt, as young as your self-confidence, as old as your despair."

I shall not endeavor here to further extol the undergraduate virtues and victories of our Class and our classmates, not merely because time does not permit, but because it has been done so superbly in the seven issues of 23's Golden Review – another first for our Class.

Those issues encompass not only our undergraduate days but the half century following. Highlighted are the time-tested Convocation Address of Hoppy and the warm, generous greetings from John Dickey and John Kemeny. Needless to say, our classmates engaged in every facet of American life and living, not only from the cradle to the grave, but from the womb to the tomb.

And needless to say, our fair share of men are listed in Who's Who – and none of us are listed in Who's That.

Nor shall I dwell upon the athletic record of the teams of our day – although they were proud ones, even in basketball – nor of our success in taking the Class picture, nor in winning the football rush. Certainly I will not mention that as sophomores we lost the first tug of war ever held to the Class of 1924. Nor shall I concern myself with the reasons for our very high attrition – from an entering class of 698 to a graduating class of 413, except to confirm what we have always suspected, namely, that Dartmouth was much harder in those days.

Of rather marked interest is another statistic, however. We have always known that one advantage of a college education is that it enables us to make a better living and to live a better life. The startling statistic is that 50 years later, over 60% of OUr 1923 graduates are living, whereas on|y 51% of the non-grads survived. As both an outstanding philosopher and mathematician. President Kemeny, I leave that explanation to you.

In any event, in 1923 we roared into the Roaring 20's – the decade of the tea dance, the speakeasy, bathtub gin, the Charleston, the big dance bands, the flapper, and unparalleled prosperity as characterized by the slogan: "Two chickens in every pot." It was an era when pot meant a cooking utensil, grass meant a lawn, a trip meant travel, and the air was considered clean and sex dirty. Those were the good old days — or were they?

There are still other firsts which make 1923 both special and unique.

Some of our classmates served in both World Wars – and some in the smaller ones which followed.

In 1948, on the occasion of our 25th Reunion, our Class was the first to give the College a Memorial Gift well in excess of $100,000, In praising this significant breakthrough, President-Emeritus Hopkins compared that achievement to breaking a log jam. He wrote: "In some analogous fashion, I look on what the Class of 1923 did as being similar to this. It broke the psychological jam under which classes assumed that major contributions of this sort were almost impossible to them and thus it rendered a double service to the College in the very remarkable accomplishment of its own and in the objective it set up for other classes to shoot at."

President John Dickey expressed a similar thought in accepting our gift on the occasion of our 25th Reunion Banquet.

And now you have just heard of another first for Dartmouth and our Class. Our Golden Reunion Alumni Fund gift to the College – in the amount of $200,000 – is the largest Alumni Fund gift ever made to the College by any Class at any time. It is tangible evidence of the intangibility of the Dartmouth spirit – of love, gratitude, pride, and loyalty. It is a wholehearted acknowledgment that Dartmouth has been good to us, and for us. Whereas thanks properly have been bestowed on all those who gave leadership to this outpouring of generosity, the fact is that the leaders had difficulty in catching up to the followers. We have learned and acted upon the truth that by the very nature of life, all of us are receivers before we can be givers.

It is difficult to define what the mystique of the Dartmouth spirit is. It is easy to identify what it does. Two examples will suffice.

In the spring of 1945, I arrived at the airstrip on the Pacific Island of Saipan, just recaptured from the Japanese. As I deplaned, a young Army lieutenant approached me and asked: "Commander Zimmerman, weren't you the President of the Dartmouth Alumni Club of Chicago just before the war?" I was. "Well," said he, "we're having a Dartmouth get- together tonight at the Marine base, and you're invited to join us." And so, a dozen or so of us met in a tent, feasted on steak, quaffed beer, reminisced, and sang Dartmouth songs to the accompaniment of an occasional distant Japanese sniper bullet.

"Tho round the girdled earth they roam; her spell on them remains."

Case History No. 2 is quite different. The leading student of a senior class of over 400 in a high school close to Hartford applied for and was given early admission to Dartmouth. Academically and by peer judgment, she is by far the outstanding member of her class. Dartmouth was her one and only choice. Then the world around her collapsed.

Her middle-income immigrant parents could see no reason for their girl – any girl – to go to college. They had made their way without benefit of college – and so should she. Their daughter was heartbroken. And then a small group of alumni in that area went to work. They visited the parents. They persuaded them not to for- bid their daughter to go to college, and even to contribute a modest amount toward her expenses. Working through the Office of Financial Aid, they secured an on-campus job for her. Then they quietly raised the balance of the money necessary to see her through freshman year and secured pledges to see her through her remaining undergraduate years. That, also, is the Dartmouth spirit put in action by a group of alumni whose deed may never be known or acclaimed, whose names may never appear on any of this world's honor rolls, but whose actions show that "a man never stands so tall as when he stoops to help another."

Mark Twain said of a friend that he could resist anything but temptation. I, too. have been unable to resist the temptation to reminisce. And yet, our Class is Janus-faced. It not only looks back, but it looks ahead. In looking back, it has seen, and indeed, participated in, many changes. Its members have not unanimously approved all of them. There are some who would want to see ROTC restored to help insure a peaceful world. Some who originally opposed coeducation have since come to accept it and even approve it, not always because a granddaughter has opted for Dartmouth. There are some who wish that the quest for truth did not almost always seem to lead along the path veering left.

We realize that education must be an ongoing process, not merely a terminal product. We applaud Dartmouth's effective efforts to offer continuing adult education – most recently, President Kemeny, in your progressive step in establishing the Dartmouth Institute, whereby men from the outside world can return to refresh themselves from the offerings of the academic world.

We would perhaps wish that there also be established a reverse flow, from the academic to the business community. Both communities are great forces for change in our society. Both need better to know and understand each other. Both are apt to become more ingrown, both apt to become more specialized, both apt to know more and more about less and less.

We would hope that such exposure to the business world would result in a better understanding of private enterprise, the best system yet devised by which men can produce more than they consume, with the excess available for better education, better government, and better life and living for all men. We would hope that there was a growing realization that survival is the first priority of individual, as well as corporate life, and that without survival, neither can serve. We would hope that there would be a better understanding of the profit motive. Profit and people are not in conflict, but in concert. People create opportunity for profit. And profit creates opportunity for people. This is as true of Dartmouth as it is of Dow-Jones.

Despite some disagreements and misgivings, the great, great majority subordinate their personal feelings to their overwhelming gratitude for the Dartmouth experience, the Dartmouth friendships, the Dartmouth spirit – in enriching their lives. Our motivations are beyond question. In a very real sense, we are conservative realists, striving to conserve the best of the old, while realizing the best of the new. We believe that Dartmouth has continued and will continue to grow in strength and service and in its commitment to excellence, and we pledge our continued support toward that end, realizing that, in the words of Francis Bacon, "That which man altereth not for the better, Time, the great innovator, altereth for the worse.

And now a parting word to the Class of 1973 from 1923.

1. Be yourselves. If you know who you are, and what your goals are, then you will know what to do along the way. A distinguished Jewish Rabbi, Abraham Goldman, had this to say: "God will not ask me why I wasn't Moses. He will ask me why I wasn't Rabbi Goldman."

2. Face life as you find it, not as you wish it were. If you would change the world for the better, start with yourself. Your condition is more important than the condition of the world. Put your own high ideals into practice. Commit yourself to excellence, whatever your undertaking. The fact that we can never attain perfection is all the more reason to everlastingly strive for it.

3. Mix .confidence and courage with tolerance and humility. A good daily prayer goes: "Dear Lord, we pray that we may be in the right, for we are very, very determined." Remember that virtue may be more dangerous than vice, because its excesses are not subject to the restraint of conscience.

4. Be persevering, yet patient. Recall the verse from the Talmud: "It is not thy duty to complete the work: but neither are thou free to desist from it." Be constructive – not destructive.

5. Count your blessings: Good parents, good teachers, a good rabbi, priest, or minister, a good wife, good associates – all of whom have helped you along the way – good friends of long standing, short standing, and best of all, understanding; good health and the good fortune of your years in a great College in a great Nation.

6. Live your life so as to be worthy of yourself, of your fellow man – and, of course, of Dartmouth. Place integrity and honesty above all else. Let your ideals sustain you to the end of your days.

7. Give of yourself and of your substance, for he who misses the joy of giving misses the joy of living; and he who misses the joy, misses all.

We of the Class of 1923 who have survived the trauma of retirement continue to look ahead. Most of us have retired from one career to another career of human service. Facetiously, it has been said that retirement is when you settle back and see which will be collected first – pension, annuities, Social Security – or you.

We have collected our recollections. We have not made as much progress as we wished, nor even as we might have liked. But we have contributed to a world which is better today than it was when we entered it. And we have survived, we have retained some sense of perspective, we have earned some sense of satisfaction and pride, and we have retained and indeed strengthened our faith in the innate goodness of man, despite all his imperfections.

To all of you, my thanks for listening – or at least for giving that appearance. The road behind has been long, at times laborious, always fascinating. The road ahead looks even more inviting. We of 1923 hope that we will be privileged to travel it together with all of you for many more years – in good health, good spirit, good faith, for good purpose, in good humor, and with good manners.

And now, it's not goodbye – but aufWiedersehen und Vergeltsgott.

Charles J. Zimmerman '23