The College

"NEVER have anything to do with murals."

President Hopkins to his successor, John Dickey, 1945

PLEASANT or not, one of Dartmouth's unfailing traditions is controversy. Some of it has been enshrined in myth (the Dartmouth College Case), some of it seems silly in retrospect, some hazy (why, really, did the seniors want to strike in 1957?).

In the last half-century there has been serious, heated argument over art (the Orozco murals and more recently "X- Delta"), over politics (isolationism, "Communists" on the faculty, Vietnam), over race and religion and sex (the "Jewish quota," the "non-negotiable demands" of 1969, women, the Indian symbol).

As mentioned elsewhere in this issue, family arguments can be the worst kind — pent-up emotion finally erupting explosively at the dinner table, to everyone's horror. Smash-up comes when emotion is stifled entirely, and the fortunate families realize that before it is too late:

Dartmouth without controversy, without honest differences of opinion, might represent the ultimate tradition failed: Dartmouth dead.