A Dartmouth Book of Remembrance Pen and Camera Sketches Of

A D artmou th Book of Remembrance Pen an d Cam era Sketch es of Han ov er an d the Colle ge B efor e the Centennial and After B y ro fe ss or Edwin B art tt 1872 P J l e , Th e Web ste r Pre s s r New am s hire Ha no ve , H p 1 9 2 2 C op y rl gh t 1 9 2 2 b y T h e W eb ste r P re ss NTI NG C0 H E F . H EE R PR I T J . lu m b u s Oh o Co , i NO$ 3 H$$ ' © Cl A6 9 08 6 7 PREFACE A $ 1 w c N J A NU R , 9 04 , t o illustrated le tures were given by five of Hanover ’ s long time I ” citizens upon Hanover Forty Years Ago . The room was crowded and the interest great . The lectures were afterwards printed in pamphlet form from shorthand notes and are a mine or perhaps better a potato patch of homely items from which every citizen might dig nourishment . But the pamphlet is out of print ; college matters were not the primary obj ect of the lectures ; dif f erent people remember different things ; some r gleanings remain . And if excuse is needed f o r of t ying to take advantage these facts , the s ad knowledge of the passing of many of multiple memories and picturesque vo cabularies without leaving any record is an incentive to lesser ones to do what they can or to try to do what they ’ can t . CONTENTS PA GE T H E COLLEGE T H E $ I LLA GE T H E D A RT M OUT H H O TEL T H E O LD CH A PEL T H E B UR$ I N G G ROU N D COLLEGE D I S CI PLI N E R E S A N G U S TA E T E ACH I N G S C H O O L I THE COLLE GE of Mr . Charles P . Chase at the beginning his dissertation upon the Migratory Houses of Han over gives the experiences of a freshman enter 1 1 ing college in 865 . In 868 the experiences were much the same ; but this freshman came from Chicago by way of Montreal , and was aroused by the knuckles of a Pullman porter to crawl out upon the platform of the worst railroad M now j unction at 3 A . , about the same as . The chill night air of September 8 rd struck into his unresisting form , but his principal reaction was the awe of the dweller in a flat country at the - surrounding mountains . After five well known ’ hours of discomfort , an 8 o clock train , as now , c — if bore him to Hanover . The train fa ilities that is a proper term for them — differed little from those of the present time . A train 1 1 M sauntered southward about A . , and a mail 2 . train wandered in at any time after P M . It is als o within memory that a train arrived from the south an hour or s o after midnight . Unless c n he a prove an alibi on that particular morning , I shall assert that Ira B . Allen himself met me with a Concord coach and drove me up that most discouraging hill and set me down hungry and homesick near the old Dartmouth Hotel . Later I may make remarks upon this institution , as I ( 9 ) 1 0 DARTMOUTH BOOK OF REMEMBRANCE think my wife and I are now a maJ orI ty of the survivors of two years of its hospitality f or room and board . Ira Allen and his wife I knew better later when he had a baked apple face and was rather poddy . ’ f Mrs . Allen s voice I often heard regulating af airs The D reary E ntran c e at the stable , but she was a good woman and many are the times , in the days of much use of the extraordinarily cheap stable , when , as I paid my h little livery bill , s e would slip me back W e or so with the statement that the remainder of the cash was plenty . Ira was inclined to somnolence in his later days , but was capable of peppery lan guage on occasion . One of the utterances upon DARTMOUTH BOOK OF REMEMBRANCE 1 1 which rested his reputation as a local humorist was when good Dr . Leeds sought to bring him into the fold and make of him a regular attendant “ ” “ - at the meeting house ; Well , Doctor , he said , if ’ ’ I m not there don t y ou wait , but go right ahead with the services . And speaking of Dr . Leeds The J oy ful O utlet and the former blank white rear wall of the church , Mrs . Susan Brown , who was not one to speak lightly of the minister , said that when he was in the pulpit he looked like a fly in a pan of milk . ’ After refreshment , a cousin who had one year s advantage of me took me in charge and I did those things which were becoming to a freshman , $ isit 12 DARTMOUTH BOOK OF REMEMBRANCE ing those kindly Profs . in their studies , and pass n ing all my examinations , some of them by a ’ s wering inquiries concerning my father s health ’ to o to and if I hadn t come a good way g college . However , I was prepared to enter , so what dif ference did it make $ fift - a o This was y four years g . Compare the College now and then by means of cold facts , the reader furnishing the other side of the parallel f column . The total enrollment o the College that 0 - fall was 3 7 . Fifty three were from without New f England , and o the remainder more than half Th e of were from New Hampshire . list all the faculty including non-resident medical lecturers 2 was 8 , of whom one , the Dean Emeritus , now “ ” 1 4 survives . The Academic faculty numbered , w of - ith the addition one non resident lecturer . 2 1 “ ” There were 6 Academies . The catalog of the time gives Departments Medical , Academic , ll Chandler Scientific , Agricultural . These were a distinct and separate in instruction and admin i r ion st at . The Agricultural D epartment was the New Hampshire College of Agriculture and the f Mechanic Arts with a separate Board o Trustees . It had j ust started up with a Junior class of 1 0 but no faculty of its own . The Thayer School had been founded but not yet put in operation . r The buildings were the old ow , Wentworth , r Dartmouth , Thornton and Reed , the Observato y and the Chandler Building , with the gymnasium ( now the home of the Thayer School ) which had been in use something over a year . DARTMOUTH BOOK OF RE ME MBRAN OE 1 3 Under the name of South Hall the College of f ered the Old Hotel ( where is now the Currier ” Block ) to indigent Freshmen , at a year ac for each one of two in a room . Although the ’ S o uth H ll th e H o e o f Ele v e nl 72 Fre sh en a , m m commodations were as indigent as their oc cu ants p , life in the old barrack had many j oys . “ ” There were no snap el ectives because there one were no electives of any kind . E very in the Academic Department studied the same things e if he studi d at all . And if sitting beside the same men f or four years and unitedly learning how each professor manipulated his cards and 1 4 DARTMOUTH BOOK OF RE ME M BRAN GE applied the marking scale had its disadvantages , it also had advantages which will never come t I again . Tha scale was a wonder : was perfect ; 5 was absolute zero ; and as it was worked the average marks of the first third of the class seldom got any nearer 5 than Greek ap r 1 p ea ed as mental pabulum in nine of the 2 terms , and Latin in 8 , and what was the matter with the 4 other 3 or terms I can not tell . The Calculus , differential and integral , was required , and imagination supplies the sequel . A year or two later a faculty who evidently could not live up to their stern ‘ resp onsibilities made a course in “ ” French optional with the Calculus . The college modernist will be surprised , per o haps incredulous , when I tell him that am ng the early exhibits to the freshmen were the “ class leaders ( in scholarship ) . There woul d be little appreciation today of the j oke much enj oyed old around the College , that when Spuds was asked by Professor Parker what “ ambrosia ” “ ” of meant , he replied the hai r oil the gods ; nor that Percy was called “ Spondee ” because he had two long feet . When some flippant youth read ing Horace to Professor Parker translated “ sim ” “ ” plex mu nditiis neat but not gaudy that good man with a smile and lingering loving accent re e m u nditiis p ated , simplex , simple in her ele ’ gance , a motto for every young lady s toilet , and ’ f r every young gentleman s too o that matter , ending with a gentle chuckle . And that is about as near to censu re as he ever came .

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