jealousy in behalf of religious freedom. Dartmouth, so far
as I recall, owing to reasons already stated, was the only
one of the earlier colleges to prescribe that the majority
of the governing Board should be laymen, but the guar-
antee of religious toleration was inserted in all the charters
of the contemporary colleges, and was usually set forth
in very explicit terms. The tending away from ecclesiasti-
THE DARTMOUTH PERIOD 263
cism has been one of the marked features of academic de-
velopment. Of the early colleges which had their origin in
denominational enterprise all now report themselves as
"non-sectarian" unless required by their charters to
maintain the original denominational control. And in the
case of these few colleges, it should be remarked that for
the very reason of nominal sectarian control, they take
unusual pains to make their actual non-sectarianism evi-
dent. Sectarianism is a characteristic of the newer colleges
which must for the time rely upon denominational sup-
port for their existence. Their sectarianism does not repre-
sent the spirit of propaganda. In due time these colleges
will doubtless become non-sectarian in the same way in
which the older colleges of like religious origin have passed
into that estate. It is seen that sectarianism does not con-
duce to academic religion. Traditions may be cherished,
forms of worship preserved, and the spirit of the inherited
faith guarded, but academic religion must have freedom
and breadth. And these qualities are practically insured
in the religious life of all colleges. WTiatever difficulties the
religious problem may present in college administration,
the essential difficulty does not arise out of sectarianism
or ecclesiasticism.
The danger that the colleges and universities may be-
come "institutionalized" through wealth is yet to be
tested. The liability of such a result is comparatively
recent. The foundations of great endowment at the out-
set, like Leland Stanford and the University of Chicago,
fall practically within the twentieth century. Johns
Hopkins led the way (in 1876) among the institutions
highly endowed at the start, with its relatively modest
foundation of $3,000,000. Harvard, still the wealthiest
264 MY GENERATION
among the universities, with the possible exception of
Cohimbia, at a present valuation of $34,000,000 in pro-
ductive endowments, was rated at $5,000,000 in 1889.
The advance of Yale from less than $1,000,000 at that
date to over $21,000,000 at the present time is perhaps
the most rapid of any. The era of great endowments falls
within the last three decades. Previous to 1890, the amount
of productive funds held by all of the New England col-
leges and universities was less than $12,000,000; the
present amount is about $100,000,000.
This increase in the holdings of the colleges and uni-
versities has been so rapid that any moral result is con-
cealed in the very process of acquisition. We speak of the
expansion of the colleges, but hardly as yet of their cap-
italization. But the time is not far off when this recent
development must be considered in its educational tend-
encies and effects. Some of our educational institutions
under private endowment have already become in a sub-
sidiary way very considerable financial institutions.
There are two tendencies in the financial development
of colleges and universities which are already suflSciently
noticeable to suggest the need of more watchful observa-
tion. First, the tendency to transform the governing
Boards into financial boards. With the rapid increase of
endowments this result is inevitable — at least to the
extent of insuring their proper care. The finances of a
college must be wisely administered, and in these days
few men apart from financiers are capable of making
suitable investments. But the indirect effect of this change
in the personnel of the governing boards is to make
the alumni and other friends of a college think of this
new obligation as their chief function. The criticism has
THE DARTMOUTH PERIOD 265:
already been passed upon the nominations made by the
ahmmi of some of our universities, that they represent
bankers quite out of proportion to educators, — a criti-
cism which recalls the question, partially discussed, as to
the further responsible use which can be made of faculties
in shaping the policy of the college. The educational and
financial policies are really inseparable. It is doubtful if
the demands of the educational can be met through dele-
gated powers. To repeat what I have already said, I
think that the way must be found to satisfy both of these
responsibilities through one and the same board, as was
practically the case before the financial responsibility
assumed such large proportions.
A second tendency is to be seen in the growing reliance
of some colleges upon educational boards of trust for
financial aid. Probably most colleges which allow them-
selves this use of what may be termed professional financial
aid would regard the use as altogether exceptional, to be
accepted in an emergency, or to be employed as a stimulus
toward raising some large fund. But some colleges seem
to be acquiring the habit of such reliance. These boards
of trust are assumed to be free from all controlling in-
fluences over the colleges. It would seem difficult, how-
ever, to dissociate influence altogether from money given
in large amount, or in repeated benefaction. The intro-
duction of the boards of financial aid into the educational
system, with large capital and highly organized, is an
innovation upon the financial method of the self-govern-
ing colleges.
It should be said that the Carnegie Pension Fund
(Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching) has a
partial justification in this regard in the fact that it is so
266 MY GENERATION
largely under the control of representatives of the colleges
and universities which are the objects of its beneficence.
But I think that it was a rehef to many when it was pro-
posed to operate the fund on an insurance basis, after
being released from present obligations. I felt that Dr.
Pritchett deserved great credit for the courage and sa-
gacity involved in this proposal. Wlien the question of
applying to the Carnegie Foundation was before the
Dartmouth Trustees, I did not vote for the application,
but I did not oppose it, as I was just leaving the presi-
dency, and could not mature the plan which I was de-
vising as a substitute. I also hesitated to oppose it because
I had reason to believe that a general pension fund would
be more agreeable to some of the faculty than a college
pension fund. But I regretted none the less the enrollment
of the College among the beneficiaries of the Fund. I
thought it a matter of honorable congratulation that the
Trustees of Brown were necessitated by the charter of the
university to forego this aid, and to maintain at this par-
ticular point, though at much cost, their entire financial
independence.
The plain fact is, that it is just because our colleges and
universities are institutions, that they have the liabilities
which belong to all such reservoirs of power. They must
be guarded from the dangers which inhere in their con-
stantly augmenting strength. Hence in college adminis-
tration there is as much need of moral sensitiveness as of
intellectual alertness. But the greater danger to our col-
leges and universities does not lie in any tendencies to their
misuse as educational institutions, but rather in the con-
stant temptation to their insuflBcient or inferior use. The
THE DARTMOUTH PERIOD 267
emphasis may fall upon the wrong place or be suffered to
rest too long in what had been the right place; a timely
intellectual or moral enthusiasm may not be carried to a
legitimate result; the opportunity may be allowed to pass
for the sure conservation of institutional power through
its expansion. The function of the university, for example,
in its relation to the past has been defined as consisting
in providing "the means by which the highest culture of
one generation is best transmitted to the ablest youth of
the next." This, it seems to me, is an insufficient interpre-
tation of the relation of a university to the past, and one
which has often given barren results. The great obligation
of the past is not the transmission of its culture, but the
transmission of its creative spirit, which may find as an
imperative duty the task of recreating its culture, which
in turn may necessitate the destroying of more than it
may preserve. In like manner the attempt to utilize college
enthusiasm may go no further than to arouse "college
spirit"; it may utterly fail to develop that fine esprit de
corps which, as Mr. Wilson says, is the product of the
"handsome passions," that in their free play can alone
guarantee nobility of thought and action. Or still further,
an institution may subject itself to the humiliation of
intellectual loss, or to the chagrin consequent upon any
sense of intellectual waste, when it is unable to put a
right valuation upon the new subject-matter of the higher
education, or is unable to organize it into the "college
discipline."
I am aware that what I am now writing may seem like
reflections growing out of the experience of the years of
college administration. Doubtless the feeling which per-
vades these words is enhanced by my experiences and
268 MY GENERATION
observations. But it was the very sentiment regarding the
institutional life of a college which I am now expressing,
that was the convincing and assuring motive in my ac-
ceptance of the Dartmouth presidency. The "situation"
with its risks and possibilities was as clear then as it now
appears in retrospect. Viewed in the light of institutional
possibilities the opportunity was plain, albeit a venture of
faith. Professor Foster, head of the department of history,
has told me that about the time of the close of my ad-
ministration he called, in an examination on the colonial
period, for a comparison between the early history of the
college and its latest development. One student remarked
incidentally, comparing Dr. Wheelock and myself, that
both "were gamblers by instinct." I was as much
pleased as amused with the insight of the student. Dr.
Wheelock certainly took, according to the view of the
average man, a great chance when he ventured on his
errand into this northern wilderness. My errand was
undertaken under very different conditions, but measured
by the definite object to be achieved which was to de-
termine its success or failure, this latter venture of faith
had in it to the ordinary, and to the interested onlooker,
a large element of chance. This object was nothing less
than to attempt to give to the College its possible in-
stitutional development — to develop it to its full insti-
tutional capacity. The colleges with which Dartmouth
had been most intimately associated in its early history —
Harvard, Yale, and Princeton — had gradually drawn
away in the pursuit of their own educational ideals. Har-
vard and Yale had already defined themselves as univer-
sities, and Princeton was taking steps to reach the same
end. What further development should Dartmouth at-
THE DARTMOUTH PERIOD 269
tempt, consistent with its traditions, and possible of real-
ization? No alumnus of Dartmouth cherished the desire
to see the College become a university. Apart from the
adverse sentiment which the attempt of the State (in the
Dartmouth College controversy), to convert the College
into a university had created, it was clearly seen that the
limitations of its environment would make the attempt,
so far as any satisfactory result might be concerned, quite
impracticable. But the purpose was legitimate and prac-
ticable, and the opportunity was present, for Dartmouth
to expand and to seek to fill to the full the college ideal.
This was the purpose entertained, altogether distinct from
the ambition to realize the university ideal, but in itself
honorable, and satisfying.
The means for carrying out this purpose, so far as they
fell within the province of administration, were both
moral and material. To my mind the emphasis in the
choice of means rested at three points. First, Dartmouth
was in a peculiar sense an historic college. Its history was
its great asset, both moral and material. It was necessary
that its history should be capitalized at its full value. To
this end the College of the present was to be brought into
vital contact with the College in its origin and early de-
velopment. The essential thing was to open wide the
channel for the transmission of the spirit of the College.
Dartmouth had no advantage in the transmission of cul-
ture. Her advantage, and it was very great, was in the
well-nigh unrivaled possession of an originating spirit at
once creative, adventurous, and charged with spiritual
power. The significance of this heritage will appear in the
succeeding section of this chapter.
Second, the creation of a high college sentiment, not
270 MY GENERATION
mere college spirit, was essential to the full institutional
development of the College. I have placed much stress
upon the educational value of the human element during
the college stage. It is of special value in creating the in-
stitutional spirit in constructive periods. "The mind of
the college" can be lifted at such times above the ordinary
causes of enthusiasm and set upon the growths and ad-
vancements of the college itself. Such periods produce a
fine community of feeling among members of the faculty,
students, and alumni. The institutional effect of growth
in numbers is not to be minimized, but the real signifi-
cance of numbers lies in what they represent. Assuming
quality as a fixed necessity, the most desirable result is the
broadening of the constituency of a college. In the present
case, the object sought in the increase of the student body
was the nationalization of Dartmouth.
The third point upon which emphasis was placed was
that any plan of reconstruction and expansion must be
commensurate with the existing opportunity. This as
compared with those already mentioned was the material
point, but it involved the whole question of educational
advance. The contrast is often drawn between teaching
and equipment to the disparagement of the latter. There
may be reason for this disparaging contrast, but it was
entirely out of place in that period of educational recon-
struction which followed the introduction of the sciences
and of the scientific method. Teaching became in large
degree a question of equipment. Colleges had to be re-
built. The college plant had an educational value which
no instructor could despise. No increase of salary could
make amends for meager facilities. Such was the situation
at Dartmouth at the beginning of the period of recon-
THE DARTMOUTH PERIOD 271
struction and expansion. It was altogether an educational
crisis. Next to a spirit of hospitality toward the new sub-
ject-matter of the higher education was the necessity of
making adequate provision for it; and this demand, when
met, necessitated in turn the rehabilitation of the material
of the older discipline.
I will not anticipate what is to be said more in detail as
I describe the modernizing process which went on at
Dartmouth, but I may fitly say at this point that I quickly
became aware of the dynamic force latent in the College,
as I sought to bring it up to its full institutional capacity,
and I may repeat what I have already strongly urged, that
college administration has to do with spiritual quite as
much as with material forces. The college administrator,
whatever may be his other qualifications, must be able to
recognize the meaning and to feel the force of the "cor-
porate consciousness of the college."
n
The Traditions of Dartmouth
"I would have an Inscription over the door of your Building — Founded by
Eleazar Wheelock: Re-founded by Daniel Webster." Judge Hopkinson to Pres-
ident Brown in a letter announcing the decision of the Supreme Court in the
Dartmouth College Case. (Inscribed on Webster Hall.)
In contrast with the educational foundations of the
latter half of the nineteenth century established under
the stimulus of the scientific spirit, those of the eighteenth
century seem to have been dominated by other than
strictly educational motives. The dominating influences
of this century were religious and political. Dartmouth dif-
fered in no wise from the colleges of this or an earlier date
in respect to the general influences affecting the higher
education, but it differed from them widely in the cir-
272 MY GENERATION
cumstances in which these influences were operative. The
rehgious motive not only acted with pecuKar intensity in
the inception of Dartmouth, but it gave to the movement
a certain adventurous character. Dartmouth was by dis-
tinction a pioneer college — a religious venture into an
untried field of education as well as into a remote region.
All the other colleges were within or near the existing
centers of population.
Dartmouth was "a voice crying in the wilderness" to
the denizens of the wilderness. But it was because of this
separateness of object and remoteness of place that its
"voice" was heard so far off — in the streets of London,
in the churches throughout Great Britain, at the court of
the king. The fortune of Wheelock's Indian School, the
incipient college, bearing with it the fortune of the in-
domitable and intrepid Wheelock, constitutes "the ro-
mance of Dartmouth." It gave, as I have said, to the
founding of the College the character of religious adven-
ture; and as such it stamped upon the College the mark of
the adventurous quite as much as of the religious. Dart-
mouth has not retained above other colleges of its genera-
tion the religious spirit, but it has retained I think some
of the distinctive characteristics of its adventurous origin.
Dartmouth differed from the other colleges in another
very important circumstance. Within fifty years from its
founding it was obliged to pass through a struggle for
its legal existence. The reestablishment of its chartered
rights which had been in jeopardy, has been fitly termed
its refounding. The circumstance attending the refounding
was altogether of another character from that attending
its founding, and produced an entirely different effect. It
marked the sharp transition from a religious to a legal
OS
>
O
o
^-
<
I-)
O
03
?!
o
H
■-•■YORK
..3RARY
i ASTOR, LENOX
TILDEN FOUNDATIONS
THE DARTMOUTH PERIOD 273
environment. It is difficult to estimate which circum-
stance had the greater effect upon the institutional life of
the College. But the influence of the latter circumstance
was no more strictly educational than that of the former.
The legal contention brought the College into close rela-
tion to the various chartered interests of the country, not
only educational but to those involving property rights.
It served to nationalize the College. And it added, not
immediately but in due time, the reputation of Mr.
Webster to its vital assets.
The founding and the refounding of Dartmouth are in
themselves events of such unusual interest in the history
of educational foundations, they represent such diverse
influences, and they are associated with men so wide
apart as Wheelock and Webster, but of such unusual
quality and so entirely one in their relation to the College,
that I dwell somewhat in detail upon these beginnings of
Dartmouth, especially upon the services rendered by its
founder and refounder.
To understand the educational bearing of the religious
motive that actuated Wheelock, and that created the
atmosphere in which he was able to develop his plans
and carry on his work, we must take due account of that
wide and deep spiritual movement which pervaded Eng-
land and America during the middle of the eighteenth
century. The remarkable fact about this movement, more
remarkable even than its intensity, was its scope. It
reached out beyond the bounds of purely religious con-
cerns into the social, philanthropic, and even political
interests of the times. In his "History of England in the
Eighteenth Century" (vol. 2, chap, ix) Lecky passes this
judgment upon the scope of the movement:
274 MY GENERATION
Although the career of the elder Pitt and the splendid vic-
tories by land and sea that were won during his ministry form
unquestionably the most dazzling episodes in the reign of George
II, they must yield, I think, in real importance to that religious
revolution which shortly before had been begun in England by
the preaching of the Wesleys and of Whitefield. The creation of
a large, powerful, and active sect, extending over both hemi-
spheres and numbering many millions of souls was but one of
its consequences. It also exercised a profound and lasting in-
fluence upon the spirit of the Established Church, upon the
amount and distribution of the moral forces of the nation, and
even upon the course of its political history.
The religious life of Wheelock was not the outcome of
this revival. It had an independent origin and its own
personal development. Wheelock was not a convert or
disciple of the religious leaders in England; he was their
contemporary. His student life at Yale coincided with that
of the Wesleys at Oxford, and preceded by a little that
of Whitefield; but he sympathized with their religious
aims and was prepared to welcome WTiitefield and to
cooperate with him on his visits to this country — a
friendship and cooperative service which were more than
repaid by Whitefield. Wheelock's Indian School was well
under way at the time of A^Tiitefield's first visit to this
country, and at once awakened his interest. He raised
considerable sums of money for its support in New York
and Philadelphia, and suggested to Wheelock the plan of
sending Samson Occom, the first fruits of the school, to
England to raise funds for its support. It was through
Whitefield that Wheelock was brought into personal re-
lations by correspondence and through his agents, with
Lord Dartmouth and those members of the Established
Church who were identified with the evangelical revival,
THE DARTMOUTH PERIOD 275
and whose minds were as much stirred by the missionary
enterprises associated with it, into which Wheelock's work
among the Indians fitted in a most timely way, as they
were by the greater secular events of the time. The fre-
quent reference in the correspondence between Wheelock
and Lord Dartmouth and other London patrons to the
"Kingdom of God" was no expression of religious cant,
but rather of a most real and vital interest in what they
believed to be the greatest matter of human concern. In
the light of these facts, the statement in Chase's History
of Dartmouth seems to be entirely justified that "without
the active assistance of Whitefield and his friends it would
not have been possible for ^^'lleelock to develop and carry-
out his extensive plans. Nothing therefore is truer than
that Dartmouth College is peculiarly a child of the Great
Revival."
'What is termed the romance of Dartmouth is in truth
a spiritual romance. It began in the appeal of the idea
embodied in Wheelock's Indian School to the spiritual
imagination of the Mother Country. It took shape and
color in the visit of Samson Occom to England, where he
was received not only with curious interest, but with
ardent sympathy and eager cooperation, as evidenced
in the subscription of ten thousand pounds in behalf of
the school, the list headed by His Majesty with a sub-
scription of two hundred pounds, and containing the
names of three thousand individuals and churches.^ The
romantic character of the origin of the College appears
more clearly in the fact that as the mirage of the higher
education of the Indians disappears, there rise in place of
1 For names of subscribers (about twenty-five hundred) see list in appendix
of Smith's History of Dartmouth College. (Houghton Mifflin & Company, 1878.)
276 MY GENERATION
Wlieelock's Indian School the substantial walls of Dart-
mouth College, fitly bearing the name of the statesman
as well known in his time for his friendship for the colonies
as for his missionary zeal. And if anything further were
needed to complete the "romance of Dartmouth," it may
be found in the reflection that none of these conditions
attending its origin could have happened except in the
decade in which they occurred. Ten years from the date
of Occom's visit to England and six years from the date of