In the beginning, Dartmouth College was little more than a small log cabin in the dense New Hampshire forest. It represented literally Dartmouth's slogan: "vox clamantis in deserto," a voice crying out in the wilderness.
What a difference 234 years makes. Today, the College has established itself among the most distinguished educational institutions in the world.
But it didn't get there without having to overcome the many obstacles strewn in its path, among which have included financial setbacks, administrative infighting and the ever-present tug of war between the administration and the student body.
The Early Years
Though Dartmouth's establishment predates the inception of the United States of America by seven years, the origins of the College reach back even further.
In 1754, Congregationalist minister Eleazar Wheelock founded Moor's Indian Charity School, named after its benefactor, Joshua Moor, in Lebanon, Connecticut, to educate and Christianize Native American youth.
Wheelock faced problems obtaining a Connecticut charter for the school, and the concurrent decline in Native American enrollment convinced him to search for a new site only 15 years after the institution's founding.
Though several New England towns bid for the new school, it was the little town of Hanover, N.H., on the banks of the Connecticut River, that prevailed.
The school's new location was on land offered by New Hampshire Governor John Wentworth, with whose help Wheelock finally obtained a charter from King George II of England on December 3, 1769.
The charter established a College "for the education and instruction of Youth of the Indian Tribes in this Land in reading, writing, and all parts of Learning which shall appear necessary and expedient for civilizing and Christianizing Children of Pagans as well as in all liberal arts and sciences and also of English Youth and any others."
Wheelock wanted to name the new college "Wentworth," in honor of the governor, but Wentworth himself requested that it instead be named after his friend William Legge, the Earl of Dartmouth, a generous benefactor and original trustee of the College.
The first class, consisting of only four students, graduated from Dartmouth in 1771. The commencement ceremony held on the current site of Reed Hall boasted a banquet that had to be canceled once it was discovered that the chefs had broken into rum intended for the guests and had become far too drunk to attend to their cooking responsibilities.
Instability that nearly threatened Dartmouth's existence came in the early 19th century when John Wheelock, Eleazar's son, became Dartmouth's second president. The younger Wheelock continually quarreled with the trustees, and in 1815, they ousted him from office.
Wheelock appealed to the governor and state legislature of New Hampshire to take control of the College away from the Board of Trustees and to rename the school Dartmouth University.
With strong support from faculty members and students, Dartmouth hired a promising young lawyer and alumnus Daniel Webster, class of 1801, to defend its case in court.
'After an unfavorable ruling from the New Hampshire Superior Court, Webster argued before the United States Supreme Court that the original College charter was an inviolable contract, and thus the name of the school could not be changed.
Webster's words in his appeal still ring true today: "Sir, you may destroy this little institution; it is weak; it is in your hands! I know it is one of the lesser lights on the literary horizon of this country. You may put it out. But if you do so, you must carry through with your work! You must extinguish, one after another, all those great lights of which for more than a century have thrown their radiance over the land. It is, Sir, as I have said, a small college. And yet, there are those who love it."
The persuasiveness of Webster's argument carried the day, and on Feb. 2, 1819, by the ruling of Chief Justice John Marshall, the College won the right to exist without governmental interference. The case is also considered a landmark in American legal history as it established the inviolability of contracts.
In the following years, the College expanded slowly but deliberately, adding several graduate schools to complement its undergraduate program.
The oldest is the Dartmouth Medical School, founded in 1797 by Dr. Nathan Smith. In 1871, the Thayer School of Engineering was established thanks to the generosity of benefactor Sylvanus Thayer, Class of 1807.
Ground was broken for The Chandler School of Science -- later integrated into the College -- in 1851, and an agricultural school, which no longer exists, got its start in 1868.
The Great Outdoors
Dartmouth's location in the wilderness has helped define not only the College itself but also many of the students that have come to it.
Until as late as 1820, each class was given the responsibility of uprooting one of the many tree stumps that adorned the Green. Clear or studded with stumps, the Green has long been a centerpiece of the Dartmouth geography. Surrounding it are many of the most important buildings on campus, and it continues to stay a popular recreation space for students and community members alike.
The small stretch of fencing that survives today around part of the Green is only a remnant of a larger fence constructed early on to keep out wandering cows. Most of the fence was destroyed in 1893. Recently, the college announced plans to move the remaining part to the corner of Main Street and Wheelock Street.
Sitting on the fence was a privilege reserved for seniors; any freshmen caught doing the same stood to receive a severe reprimand, often in the form of a beating.
Dartmouth Hall, originally built in 1791, has been home to a number of pranks. One year, students who disliked the townspeople's cows grazing on the Green hid the cows in the basement of the hall. At another time, students simply drove the cows across the river.
Perhaps the first student to fit the mold as a true outdoorsy type, John Ledyard departed to journey among the Iroquois Indians only four months after beginning his Dartmouth career. In 1773, he departed Hanover by sail on the Connecticut River.
Despite a brief stay at the College, Ledyard's spirit for adventure still serves as inspiration for many of Dartmouth's outdoors organizations, including the Dartmouth Outing Club, which is the largest student organization in terms of membership. Both the bridge connecting New Hampshire to Vermont and the Hanover boathouse bear his name.
Presidents and Fraternities
The first fraternities, which more closely resembled secret societies than modern fraternities, appeared in the early 1840s. Weekly meetings consisted of debates and speeches on history and literature.
In 1849, the Trustees voted to abolish fraternities, but the ban was ignored and fraternities grew in number.
President Samuel Concord Bartlett, a strong proponent of Bible-oriented study in office from 1877 to 1892, was an unrelenting foe of two Dartmouth-associated schools, the Agricultural School and the Chandler Scientific School.
After a long battle that nearly cost Bartlett his job, the Agricultural School moved to Durham, New Hampshire, where it planted the seeds for the establishment of the University of New Hampshire.
In 1893 William Jewett Tucker became Dartmouth's ninth president. Formerly a preacher, Tucker infused Dartmouth with a spiritual momentum through his inspiring speeches to undergraduates.
Yet during his presidency, Tucker ended the College's practice of mandatory chapel attendance, arguing that it was not the College's place to convert students.
Change Afoot
Dartmouth underwent drastic physical changes during Tucker's time in office, with many of the best-known campus buildings constructed under his watch.
Thirteen dormitories were either remodeled or newly built during this time, as were several science buildings and Webster Hall, now home to Rauner library. A new power plant was built to free students from tending fire-prone wooden stoves, while buildings for the first time gained running water.
In 1899, Dartmouth's third graduate school, the prestigious Amos Tuck School of Business Administration, was founded with the help of alumnus Edward Tuck, Class of 1862.
Also in Tucker's time, the curriculum expanded in breadth, and students were allowed more freedom in course selection. Previously all students took the same courses in the same sequence.
Ernest Martin Hopkins, Class of 1901, became Dartmouth's 11th president. Another popular president, Hopkins oversaw the construction of Baker Library, still the most imposing structure on campus. The Orozco murals -- which drew great controversy at the time -- were also commissioned under Hopkins.
In 1945 John Sloan Dickey '29 became president. Dickey marked his tenure in the establishment of the Great Issues Course , an interdisciplinary three-term course for seniors that brought renowned speakers to Hanover.
Dickey also presided over the construction of the Hopkins Center, more commonly referred to as "The Hop", which was opened by Hopkins himself in 1962.
The Modern Era
Trouble came during the Vietnam War in 1969 when Parkhurst Hall " the administrative building " was seized by students protesting the existence of the Reserve Officer Training Corps program at Dartmouth and the Vietnam War. The students surrendered the building the next day.
John Kemeny succeeded Dickey as president in 1970. A brilliant mathematician, Kemeny improved the mathematics department and also helped create the BASIC programming language.
But defining his presidency most was the institution of coeduction at Dartmouth in 1972 after lengthy and heated debates. Dartmouth was last in the Ivy League to admit women.
In order to avoid reducing the number of male students to make way for women, the Dartmouth Plan was instituted. This plan entailed operating Dartmouth year-round on the quarter system, which allowed for a larger enrollment. (The Class of 1999 became the first class to enroll more women than men, with 50.2 percent women and 49.8 percent men.)
Also in 1972, Dartmouth abandoned its Indian athletic mascot in favor of the current emblem, Big Green.
The 1980s saw the advent of The Dartmouth Review, an off-campus conservative newspaper, which often clashed with the administration.
In 1986, in one of the publication's more famed moves, some Review members destroyed shanties built on the Green to protest the College's investment in South Africa, causing an uproar on campus.
Also leaving a lasting impression on the College was former College President James Freedman, who stepped down five years ago.
Freedman's arrival coincided with the completion of Dartmouth's newest dormitory cluster, East Wheelock, which began housing students in 1987.
During his 11 years at the College, Freedman strove to increase intellectualism and promote diversity on campus. The number of non-whites enrolled at Dartmouth steadily increased under his watch.
Under Freedman's watch, the curriculum was revamped, and a new, more structured distributive system was instituted beginning with the Class of 1998.
Wright and the SLI
The past three years have been marked by the controversy that surrounded the Student Life Initiative (SLI). Introduced by the Board of Trustees in 1999 during Wright's first term as College President, the Initiative promised to make the Dartmouth experience "substantially more coeducational" -- a pledge that some thought would signal the end to the College's single-sex fraternity and sorority system.
The Trustee's announcement shook the campus into an uproar. Upset students staged a protest on a fraternity lawn that attracted attention from the national media.
Since the implementation phase of the Initiative began, College committees have been formed to address a broad range of student and residential life issues, from diversity to Greek affairs to judicial proceedings. Many of the recent Greek changes, including a stringent party policy, have attracted the most criticism.
Recent developments have included the release of a strategic plan for the future of the College, announced by Wright last year, which called for a new capital campaign to boost financial aid as well as new residential halls and dining facilities in the north of campus.
However, many of these projects have been postponed as the College suffers the effects a slumping economy. Most departments have had to make significant budget cuts, while the Human Biology program has been cut completely. But the College retracted its plans to cut the swimming and diving team after alumni raised sufficient funds to keep the team afloat for the next 10 years. The future of Sanborn library, another potential addition to the budgetary chopping block, is still uncertain.
