150 years of Dartmouth college, an account of the celebration of the sesqui-centennial anniversary of the founding of the college, together with illustrations of the events of the occasion, of the buildings of the college in the year 1919

Front matter

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Prefatory Note

IN the year 1969 Dartmouth College will be two hundred years old. The occasion will be one fit for rejoicing. There will doubtless be rejoicing, and, therewithal, a celebration, which will be preceded by much planning. To the end of assuring the complete satisfaction of all concerned, various and weighty committees will be constituted. They will spend much time in earnest discussion as to what portion of the forthcoming exercises shall be devoted to historic pageantry illustrating, to the eyes' enchantment, the great career of Dartmouth through admiring decades; what part devoted to adequate oratory calculated to enliven the spiritual perceptions of the undergraduates, alumni and friends of the institution, and, thereby, to deepen their respect for eciucation in general and for Dartmouth education in particular.

Some of those who gleefully attended the celebration of the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the College, and at that time conducted themselves with the becoming joviality and sprightliness of youth, will now hobble into the arena of the two hundredth, to smile toothless response to the plaudits of a new generation of the gleeful. But beyond bearing enthusiastic witness to the fact that the one hundred and fiftieth was a great event, these survivors of an earlier era will be of no great value as historical documents. In short, while they will achieve high success as exhibits, they will, as reminiscent advisers to planning committees, prove considerably worse than nothing.

To accomplish what, some fifty years hence, these amiable but helpless gentlemen will be quite incapable of accomplishing — to serve as guide, councilor and friend to the committee in charge of the two hundredth anniversary celebration of the College — is the humble purpose of this volume.

On that basis alone it must at once be admitted that its publication is, perhaps, forty-seven years premature. For that fact, however, no apology is offered. The one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the founding of Dartmouth College was an event possessed of considerable intrinsic interest, entirely apart from that of serving as a precedent, or a warning, for subsequent, similar occasions.

It is worth while, too, to seize upon and mirror permanently, if possible, the momentary aspect of the College at one and one-half centuries of age. That feat it was the original intention of this book to perform. To show just what manner of place was Dartmouth at this particular date, to present its visible features — its buildings, its circumambient landscape, its governing board, its faculty, its student populace — was an interesting and laudable intention. And with it was to go a transcript of the wisdom and the sentiment of the day as expressed in the speeches of sons of the College and friends of the sons.

Many circumstances — among them the impossibility of obtaining complete series ot photographs, and with it an excessive delay in securing many that eventually came to hand — have warped the plan and dulled the enthusiasm with which it was first undertaken. The book still presents Dartmouth as of 1919; but it does not present it with the perfect completeness which had been the hope and the ambition of those responsible for it.

Yet it will serve somewhat as a monument, albeit a truncated one, to a great event. It may, in a measure, amuse the curious, intrigue the studious, admonish the reverent. That indeed is the function of all monuments. And this one, be it remembered, while nominally celebrant of 1919, is dedicated to the enlightenment of 1969. May the Honorable Committee in charge in that forthcoming day and generation accept the kindly wish which such dedication implies!

Homer Eaton Keyes, Executive Secretary jnr the Sesqui-Centennial Committee.