1913

Hundreds of Dartmouth men now living will remember Dean Craven Laycock '96, and a few in our Class will remember him as a popular professor of oratory and assistant dean. Many of us loved him, but none more so than Bill Cunningham '19.

The 1913 Class Book published in 1933 contains an article entitled "Dean Laycock - Loveable 'lndian,'" written by Bill for the Boston Post, shortly after a Boston alumni dinner. Excerpts from the article reveal only a few of the traits that endeared him to the student body:

"The banquet down in the Chamber of Commerce building was really our Boston farewell to the grandest, the most loyal, the most loveable Indian of us all - the sagacious gentleman who scotched all our undergraduate lies, rode herd on our marks, meted out punishments that were awful sometimes, but who never forgot us once we were through, in fact, our daddy, our father confessor, our chief executioner all in one, and who remembered our names, our nicknames, our wives, and our kids.

"I'll always love him and respect him beyond almost any man I know for all the fact that part of the gray hairs that rim his aristocratic bean were put there by some of the scrapes I either instigated or had much to do with. He's an expert in grief, but I gave him more than my share. He had plenty of chance to heave me out at one time or another.

"There was the time I socked the guy in the football game. It was the Springfield Y.M.C.A. we were playing that day, and the center on the other club had been a Y secretary with some troops to which I belonged, the war then being but recently over. Some trouble broke out in the middle of the line. One word led to another and this militant Y.M.C.A.'er popped me in the chin. I popped him back, doing a very nice job of it, if I do say so, and a free-for-all promptly started. The affair got into the papers and made quite a stir. I was the hitter back and I dreaded the summons to the office of the dean.

The next morning was a fine and sunny Sunday, as I remember, and the dean came down to Dave Storr's after church for his Sunday newspapers just as I was crossing the street. I saw him, gravely tipped my hat as usual, and he stopped stock still for a moment. He didn't say a word. He merely lifted his forefinger and waggled it back and forth a couple of times. 'Yes, sir,' I said and tipped my hat again. I knew what he meant. It was, 'Don't sock, any more football players.' It was just as effective as if he'd delivered a sermon. I always loved the man because he was so human."

To be continued in later class notes.

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