A Heritage and An Obligation

THE FIFTY-YEAR ADDRESS

THIS is a proud moment for the Class of 1914. It has just been reported that we have the largest attendance at the Fiftieth Reunion of any class in Dartmouth history.

That so many have returned is a reflection of our affection for the College and for one another. Our Twenty-Fifth Reunion in 1939 was also memorable, except for one untoward incident. Full of youth and vigor, led by our two All-American marshals, and preceded by Scotch bagpipers, we paraded across the campus. Several undergraduates were seated on the Senior Fence, and as we marched by, one was heard to say - very audibly - "There go the thick of waist and the short of breath."

Perhaps our eyesight has become a bit dim and our memories have failed somewhat. In order that we might be certain to identify one another at this Reunion, we have badges with our names printed in large type, together with reproductions of our graduation photographs taken from the Aegis.

There was a man with a memory problem who was to attend a similar Reunion. In preparation he took a course in memory-by-association and was graduated. He went up to the first classmate he met and said: "Your name is White and you come from Washington." The reply was: "No my name is Green and I come from Georgetown." To the next man: "Your name is Batchelor and you come from Boston." The reply "No, I am Benedict and I come from Baltimore."

Then he tried another: "Your name is Snow and you are from Syracuse." The reply was: "No, it is Raines and I'm from Rochester." And so it went. Finally he went up to one chap and said: "Your face is very familiar and I'm sure I know you." The reply was: "You should. I'm your brother and I paid for your memory course."

The 50-year class which assembled in Hanover in 1914 was the Civil War Class of 1864. Twenty of the 22 living graduates - I believe this to be an all-time record - were back. They were a wonderful looking group, and according to the Secretary's letter in the August 1914 ALUMNI MAGAZINE, the Reunion was an unqualified success and they had the time of their lives.

Of one dedicated Dartmouth man who returned to Hanover on several occasions during our undergraduate days I should like to speak. He was Judge David Cross, Class of 1841. Born in 1817, he died in 1914 - the year of our graduation - at the age of 97. To the end, he stood tall and his mind was clear. Some of us in '14 had the privilege of knowing him. He addressed the College on one of our Dartmouth Nights and said that he had known Dartmouth graduates from every class from 1771 on down. He spoke of Daniel Webster whose very appearance and personality was such that men would form groups around him wherever he went.

When I tell my grandchildren that I knew a Dartmouth graduate who had known soldiers who had fought in the American Revolution, they classify me as ancient indeed. And in the year 2014, at your Fiftieth, you of the Class of 1964 may tell your grandchildren that you knew a man who knew another man who had known men who fought in the Revolutionary War.

The recent discovery of the Zinj Man indicates that man's origin on this earth goes back some two million years. So, in the existence of human beings, a couple of centuries is a mere interlude.

The half-century preceding our graduation had been years of comparative peace. Just four days after our commencement, Prince Ferdinand of Austria was assassinated in Sarajevo and the First World War was on its way. Since then life for us has not been dull. There followed a Second World War and some lesser ones, three financial recessions, the development of the Atom, automation, racial tensions, and the knowledge explosion. In the past half-century the population of the U.S. has doubled. We are now in the process - hopefully - of surviving Hootenanny and the Beatles.

The famous Class of 1914 included a Wheelock and a Tuck. Our 1914 Wheelock, like his progenitor Eleazar, became a distinguished divine. He is an officer of the International Organization of the Congregational Church. He led our class memorial services this morning.

The 1914 relative of Dartmouth's leading benefactor, Edward Tuck, was in Oxford when the war broke out. He became a major in the British Army, was twice wounded, and survived to be an officer in the American Army on the Italian front in World War II.

Over half of the Class of 1914 was in uniform during World War I, and a sizable percentage served in World War II. Our classmates from both World Wars who have made the supreme sacrifice are listed on the Dartmouth Honor Roll. On this Roll, too, are sons of our classmates who gave their lives in World War II. In the Korean War the hero son of our 1914 class president was posthumously awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.

Time is too short to recount 1914's contribution to education, business, finance, government, the sciences, and the arts. Just to touch a few high spots, we have been represented in the Congress of the United States, we have had a college president, a university dean, a Pulitzer Prize winner, an admiral, and an ambassador. We have had playwrights, authors, a poet, a leading man on Broad-way, and members of Government Commissions under five Presidents. A 1914 architect redesigned the face of the Capitol Building in Washington. The murals in the Hovey Grill are by a 1914 artist. A technical institute in New York City is named for one of our living members. Our class chairman for the next five years served as Inspector General of Customs and Finance Adviser to the Republic of China. For months in World War II he was in a Japanese prison camp.

Of interest, too, has been the Class's many contributions to Dartmouth. 1914 originated the Class Memorial Funds, and has been a leader in alumni activities, in financial aid to the College, and in the establishment of a program of scholarships.

The emotion that one feels for Dartmouth is more than place loyalty to a small New England village. It stems largely from human relationships with our professors and instructors.

While there have been remarkable physical developments on the Hanover Plain since our undergraduate days, the real essence of education, as Mark Hop-kins observed, is a student on one end of the log and a professor on the other.

And so we of 1914 speak with everlasting gratitude of the professors and instructors of our Dartmouth days who gave us of their minds and of their hearts. Their nicknames were evidence of our affection — Clothespins Richardson, Freddy Emery, Doc Licklider, Craven Laycock, Eric-the-Red Foster, Toot Worthen, Freddy Bartlett, Chuck Emerson, Johnny Vose Hazen, Harmony Morse, and Gordon Ferrie Hull.

Our sentiment for these guides and preceptors of our college years is such that we suggest that consideration be given to including as a group in the Commencement exercises those who graduate to Professors Emeriti each year. Their spokesman could then bid hail and farewell to the students whom they had taught and whom they had inspired.

One who contributed greatly to our college years was "Cheerless" Richardson, a Professor of Chemistry. His history of Dartmouth published in two volumes in 1932 has served as a constant reminder of the heritage that is ours and is yours.

From Professor Richardson's history, we learn of Samson Occom, Eleazar's first and most outstanding Indian student. Samson Occom lived and studied in Eleazar's home in Lebanon, Connecticut, for four years. He was ordained as a Pastor, he was a teacher and a composer. With the Reverend Nathaniel Whitaker, Samson Occom ws sent to England to raise funds for the founding of what was intended to be a school for Indians. Funds that were collected during their two-year stay permitted Eleazar to found Dartmouth College. It seems only right and fitting that undergraduates and graduates alike be reminded of Samson Occom and his contributions to the College. So, Dr. Dickey, on behalf of the Class of 1914, we are presenting to you suitably inscribed a bust of Samson Occom which, we trust, may find a setting on the Dartmouth campus.

When we were planning our Fiftieth Reunion in Hanover, we pondered as to what we of the Class might do for the Class of 1964 so that you, too, would know of events and of the men who created the Dartmouth tradition. Richardson's history of Dartmouth is now out of print. One day it will be a collector's item.

We learned that for the past three years Ralph N. Hill, of the Class of 1939, has been preparing an up-to-date version of the Story of Dartmouth. In print and production he has the cooperation of Ray Nash, professor of graphic arts. This volume, The College on theHill, will be published this fall.

So, here is 1914's gift to you of the Class of '64. Some time before Christmas, wherever you may be, a copy of the new Dartmouth history will be mailed to every one of you. Your name will be on the frontispiece together with the simple statement, "To Share Our Dartmouth Heritage With You."

You will read and know of the old Dartmouth, and of the new Dartmouth inspired by President Tucker and built by President Hopkins and President Dickey.

As we return to the campus of today, we hear of the Dartmouth innovations of the tri-semester and of the Alumni College. But also, for the Class of 1914, I wish to pay. tribute to three other major developments in Dr. Dickey's administration.

The first significant development is that the percentage of students getting financial aid from the College is nearly twice that of a decade ago. The finished product of the College can be no better than the material that goes into it. This financial aid program has enabled Dartmouth to attract and to enroll promising students who otherwise would have been lost to the College.

A second development in President Dickey's administration has to do with the Board of Trustees.

As Dartmouth men you are told that the College belongs to you — to the alumni. You will be called upon to repay the debt that is yours to insure that the College will continue to be a true College of Liberal Arts whose purpose is the training of undergraduates for citizenship. In exercising your responsibilities, you will function in the Dartmouth clubs in your areas, in Class and Alumni Fund activities, and in choosing your representatives to serve on the Alumni Council.

Under the original charter, the Board of Trustees was self-perpetuating with the stipulation that eight of the twelve members must come from the State of New Hampshire. Alumni efforts to change the charter began nearly one hundred years ago with the first meeting of the Alumni Association in Hanover in 1869. The charter was changed in Dr. Tucker's regime in 1894 so that five of the twelve members were elected by the alumni, and the New Hampshire restriction was reduced to seven. Under Dr. Hopkins this was cut down to five, and we are now assured that this New Hampshire restriction of five will be removed, as it should be.

The Dartmouth of today has students and graduates in all fifty states of the Union. And yet, as late as ten years ago, the Board of Trustees had only one member residing west of the Hudson River.

The major breakthrough occurred just four short years ago when the Board was enlarged from twelve to sixteen members, and the number elected by the alumni was increased from five to seven.

It is right and fitting that the graduates should have the right of franchise, and that the Board, which has been largely sectional, should become national in its interests and national in its composition.

Third and significant in the Dartmouth of today has been encouragement given to undergraduates to develop their powers of communication.

I have in my possession a Dartmouth catalogue for the academic year 1859-60. The curriculum from freshman year on called for declamations once a week as well as for studies in rhetoric and elocution. And in the junior and senior year each individual student was called on to make an original declamation before the entire College body.

Over the course of years this requirement was dropped at Dartmouth and at other colleges. The emphasis has been on the acquisition of knowledge rather than on the ability to transmit it. As a result, our college and university graduates are less articulate than those of universities in western Europe.

It would be of interest to establish the relationship between participation in debate in the academic years and the effect upon the careers of those who were involved. It is significant that on our Board of Trustees the principal proponents of debate at Dartmouth have been former debaters and men with distinguished careers in the public service — Congressman Tom Curtis, former Secretary of the Navy John Sullivan, and the late Under Secretary of the Treasury Roswell Magill.

The current debate program at Dartmouth includes probably more participants than in any college of like size in the country. Twice during the past four years Dartmouth has won the National Debate Championship in competition with more than five hundred colleges and universities all over the United States. This year Dartmouth again won the Eastern Championship.

As an indication of the importance of debate training, I might point out that the present occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue was on the debating team at Southwest State Teachers College. And if one wants to look further into the impact that communicators have made on our way of life, I refer you to Messrs. Hitler, Churchill, Castro, and de Gaulle.

Now finally your Commencement speakers will tell you of '64 that you are confronting a world of bewildering per-plexities. But history tells us that the strength and capabilities of individuals and peoples develop under conditions of hardship and struggle.

There is a fallacy abroad that all men are created equal; with enthusiasm reserved for the common man who remains common, rather than for the common man who makes himself uncommon. There is no equality in nature, nor is there nor will there ever be in individuals.

For those of us who are blessed with a Dartmouth heritage there is a responsibility as long as we are physically and mentally fit to try to render useful service in an attempt to repay in some measure the rights and privileges that have been ours. Power entails obligations to exercise power wisely and in the interest of the many.

On a sixteen-ton green marble slate unveiled by his sons is this quote from John D. Rockefeller Jr.: "I believe that every right implies a responsibility, every opportunity an obligation, every possession a duty."

Now I'd like to add another quotation. This one was found in Dag Hammar-skjold's family Bible after his death: "The day you were born everybody was happy - you cried alone. Make your life such that in your last hour all others are weeping and you alone are the only one without a tear to shed."

And if you of the Class of 1964 believe with the ancient Greeks that man's purpose is to live to the highest possible pitch of human performance, physically, morally, and intellectually, then you will find new ways of doing old things better and create new paths of progress and open new doors of opportunity.

Sigurd S. Larmon '14 with the carvedhead of Samson Occom presented to theCollege by 1914. He holds a dummy copyof the new Dartmouth history that 1914will present to each member of 1964.