1951

As perhaps befits the month of March, with one foot still in winter and another in spring, we have good news and bad news to report in the natural course of events. We have recently learned of the death from a heart attack of Cliff Harrison, in Albany, N.Y. You will all remember Cliff for his outstanding skills as a hockey player: All-Ivy three straight years, captain his senior year, and a member of the U.S. Olympic team in 1952, when they played in Oslo.

Jake Livingston tells us that he is doing well after heart surgery.

Bob Hopkins reports that he has recently heard from several of our classmates' widows: Monica Fogarty, Jean Bowler, and Marta Phillips. As you all know, we are particularly interested to help all such women become a part of our class fellowship.

The June wedding bells that will be ringing for Jack Giegerich and Carol Mack will 'definitely not be breaking up that old gang of ours, as Carol has long been a part of all our class functions.

The recent financial report of the College suggests that Dartmouth has not been materially affected by the recent unfavorable publicity attending the Dartmouth Review; nor has the Alumni Fund, as it continues to lead the nation in participation percentages. Just imagine what an astounding prodigy Dartmouth would be were there no

gainsayers. And that statement leads me to this personal comment: In reading a volume of essays entitled "Prisons We Choose to Live Inside," by Doris Lessing, I have found some of her views to have a bearing upon the factionalism which seems currently to be fracturing the alumni of the College: "People like certainties. More, they crave certainty, they seek certainty, and great resounding truths. They like to be part of some movement equipped with these truths and certainties, and if there are rebels and heretics, that is even more satisfying... The polarization can be seen not only in politics, but in universities." It seems to me that the Dartmouth Review and the Hopkins Institute are alike in their certainty that the College once possessed a number of "truths" which it has now lost, and they see themselves as opposing those who would prevent a return to those values. Thus, their cause has an aura of religious fervor: they are fighting the good fight against heretics, "lest the old traditions fail." Perhaps that is why they so actively seek opposition, even injury, so that "wrongs" may be created which will cry out for redress. (Note that the motto of the Dartmouth Review-Nemo me impune lacessit, "No one injures me with impunity" suggests such an attitude.) The College administration, however, is not a "movement," nor is it "equipped" with certainty, for they represent an institution whose past is long enough to have witnessed and outlived a number of narrow and temporary "truths." Granted, some of the truths of the past will continue to be valid in the present and the future, but not all of them; that is why the College administration must resist any simplistic attempt to return to the past. All true institutions transcend time; for while they honor the past and profit from its mistakes, they can no more remain there than can an intelligent, vibrant youth: neither can exist in the past or even just for the present; their view must be to the future. (For that reason, the Hopkins Institute is misnamed.) Those who seek a return to the past betray a lack of trust in the very institution they purport to serve. Let us all, instead, have faith that intelligent students, faculty, and administrators will seek and find a newer and better world, even as we have done.

Take care, be good to yourselves, and keep in touch.

178 Madison Avenue, Holyoke, MA 01040