1947

Greetings, classmates; welcome to October in Hanover. I have chosen to continue writing, along with my own reading, about The Dartmouth Experience, by John Sloan Dickey. I have prepared this series in mid-June while it was fresh in my mind, so I hope no news floats in which makes this column untimely. My reading of this book has given me much pleasure. I can recommend it to all of us who shared the experience. (Available at Dartmouth Bookstore.)

I have to wonder honestly how much attention I paid, as a student, to the rather long Convocation addresses with their ideas and exhortations to duty. I can certainly recall some of the words, and I can picture and hear J. S. D. as he says "And we'll be with you all the way." I have a feeling I let the words go in and through, but definitely retained the messages within. I have the strong feeling that I received a sense of specialness as a Dartmouth person, and even vowed for awhile to heed the lessons of his address. I was only a kid, too, then, but I did respond to urgent calls to duty, to responsibility, and to a sense of spirit with Dartmouth and the U.S.A. Therefore, I feel quite reasonable in stating that these messages would have a great good effect on today's students. Just as J.S.D. introduced a mandatory Great Issues to us, perhaps it would be appropriate to have a mandatory course in "Dartmouth Traditions", emphasizing a reading of TheDartmouth Experience. It's only a suggestion.

Look at the Convocation address of October 1946 entitled "The World's Troubles are Your Troubles:"

"But I would like to say just a word more about the world's troubles and your relation to them. I hope whatever else you have already learned in war or may learn here in peace, that when the time comes you will leave College understanding two things about the world: first, that the world's troubles are your troubles, even though the converse may often seem to you not to be true; and, secondly, that the world's worst troubles come from within men, and there is nothing wrong with the world that better human beings can not fix.

"Gentlemen, if you leave Dartmouth without a deeper understanding of these two propositions than you now have, you and the college will have failed each other. ..."

Or, the Convocation address of 1951: "A Free Man is Answerable:"

". . . Gentlemen, this is the point in any young man's life where he begins in earnest to learn the weight of things for himself. The burdens of responsibility now shift rapidly, from the shoulders of your parents and teachers, to your own back. Whether it be at college, at work, or at war, the central moral lesson taught in the curriculum of life, at this stage in growth, is that a free man is answerable because he is free. That, I think, is the root meaning of responsibility.

"... Your task from here on is to use your opportunities of choice, to build into the fibre of your experience the strength of moral choices."

From the Convocation address of 1952: "The Business of Being a Gentleman:"

"We also know, gentlemen, that in relationships of higher education there are few ways in which we can fail each other more miserably than in this matter of manners.

"Let me be sure I am not misunderstood. I .assuredly am not talking about the kind of high polish which, when applied to human veneer, produces a gloss of affection. Nor do I want to dwell here unduly on those small niceties of manner which contribute something of grace and pleasure to our daily fare. The art of bothering to say 'thank you,' however is a good illustration of one of those niceties a difference in the dimensions of daily life. The quality of honest and sensitive appreciation is one of the most basic human values. As with all art, the expression of appreciation profits from the discipline of restraint. But restraint is one thing and indifference, laziness and insensitivity are something else; they are not merely breeders of bad manners, they are enemies of your education, and any opportunity in the daily life of the campus to act otherwise is important to you."

Would it have been possible to sledgehammer the shanties with this admonition ringing in your ears?

And there is so much more. Read the book. Every Convocation ended with these words: "Now, Gentlemen, as I have said before, as members of the college you have three different, but closely intertwined roles to play:

"First, you are citizens of a community and are expected to act as such.

"Second, you are the organic stuff of an institution, and what you are, it will be.

"Thirdly, your business here is learning, and that is up to you. "We'll be with you-and good luck."

I only attended one Commencement, but I can recall the message, and the words were the same every year, and still are as true today:

"And now the word is 'so long' because in the Dartmouth fellowship there is no parting."

Never fear for the Dartmouth spirit. It's always there; it may just need to be shined up every so often. God bless you, John Sloan Dickey.

63 Maple Avenue Keene, NH 03431