Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 73.djvu/193

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American Association for the Advancement of Science in planning a special summer meeting had in view a visit to an educational institution of interest in a region attractive in the summer time, rather than a convenient place for the presentation of scientific papers. The meeting was j entirely successful from the point of view of place and environment, and the fact that the scientific programs were not extensive was scarcely a drawback. Nor did the small attendance interfere seriously with the pleasure of those present, though it seems a pity that only two of the eleven sections of the association organized and that but few of those interested in sciences other than physics and geology made the meeting an occasion to visit Dartmouth College and meet their friends.

It is perhaps true that the holidays are not the best time to visit a college, which should be regarded as its men and their work rather than as its buildings and equipment. But in any case it is not possible for a visitor to do more in a couple of days than obtain a general impression. Dartmouth is one of the oldest of our colleges and one of those which have grown most rapidly in recent years. It is in many ways a typical New England college, though its school of medicine and its graduate schools of engineering and affairs give it better warrant to bear the name of university than many institutions which assume this dignity.

Dartmouth College traces its origin to a school for the christian education of young Indians, opened in 1754; it received a charter with its present name in 1769. In 1819 a lawsuit between the trustees and the state of New Hampshire was decided which made the college independent of the state. Otherwise it might have been the University of New Hampshire, and this it may yet become. The reaction against state control which separated most of the eastern institutions from the state is not apparent west of the Atlantic seaboard, and it is by no means unlikely that through their colleges of agriculture and the mechanic arts or by adoption of one of the privately controlled institutions there may yet Le state universities in each of the eastern states.

The Dartmouth Medical School began with the appointment of a professor of medicine in 1798. The Thayer School of Engineering was established in 1867 and the Amos Tuck School of Administration and Finance in 1900. These two schools are based on the college course, or rather, following the "Columbia plan," on the first three years, the last year of college and the first year of the professional school being identical. The college predominates, having 1,102 of the 1,219 students in the institution. In it the group system obtains and the possibility of completing the course in three years. Latin is required for the bachelor of arts degree, but not Greek. The students in the course leading to the bachelor of science degree, for which neither Latin nor science is required, are about half as many.

The catalogue says that the undergraduate life develops independence,