Class Note 1972
Issue
March - April 2026
Class Note 1972. Dear ’72s, happy 250th birthday to the United States of America! Dartmouth College passed that notable milestone in 2019—the last college to be chartered by the king of England before the American Revolution. Dartmouth also was one of the only colleges, if not the only one, to remain open for the duration of the revolution.
Our own Daniel Webster, class of 1801, on December 21, 1820, went to Plymouth, Massachusetts, to give a retrospective of the Pilgrims landing there in 1620. “This is the spot where the first scene of our history occurred, where the homes and churches of New England were first laid, where our civilization began in a wilderness where the people brought forth free institutions, moral patterns of behavior, principles of imperishable truth and beauty, commercial success, and an abiding love of liberty.”
Our motto of “a voice crying in the wilderness” is based on the prophet, John the Baptist, emerging in a desolate place, like Hanover in 1769, to proclaim the imminent arrival of the Messiah, or foundational truths to Eleazar Wheelock, calling people to repentance and spiritual readiness to receive the Lord, or, perhaps, knowledge.
Calvin Coolidge, a Republican president from Vermont, delivered a message to press on, the spirit of which was adopted by many Dartmouth classes. Coolidge said: “Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education is not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan ‘Press On’ has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.”
Coolidge is known as the taciturn president, but he spoke from the heart and had wisdom. He said, after a flood devastated parts of Vermont in 1927, “If the spirit of liberty should vanish from other parts of our Union and the support of our institutions should languish, it could all be replenished from the generous store held by the people of the brave little state of Vermont.” This spirit also resides in the character of numerous classes of Dartmouth graduates who have built a treasure in the wilderness of the Upper Valley of the Connecticut River.
In 1926, 100 years ago, on the 150th anniversary of our independence, Coolidge said: “We live in an age of science and an abounding accumulation of material things. These did not create our Declaration [of Independence], our Declaration created them. The things of the spirit come first. Unless we cling to that, all our material property will turn to a barren scepter in our grasp. If we are to maintain the great heritage which has been bequeathed to us, we must be like-minded to the fathers who created it. We must cultivate the reverence which they had for things that are holy. We must follow the spiritual and moral leadership they showed.”
Lest the old traditions fail.
—Shel Prentice, 2311 Tradition Way, #102, Naples, FL 34105; shelprentice72@gmail.com
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Our own Daniel Webster, class of 1801, on December 21, 1820, went to Plymouth, Massachusetts, to give a retrospective of the Pilgrims landing there in 1620. “This is the spot where the first scene of our history occurred, where the homes and churches of New England were first laid, where our civilization began in a wilderness where the people brought forth free institutions, moral patterns of behavior, principles of imperishable truth and beauty, commercial success, and an abiding love of liberty.”
Our motto of “a voice crying in the wilderness” is based on the prophet, John the Baptist, emerging in a desolate place, like Hanover in 1769, to proclaim the imminent arrival of the Messiah, or foundational truths to Eleazar Wheelock, calling people to repentance and spiritual readiness to receive the Lord, or, perhaps, knowledge.
Calvin Coolidge, a Republican president from Vermont, delivered a message to press on, the spirit of which was adopted by many Dartmouth classes. Coolidge said: “Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education is not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan ‘Press On’ has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.”
Coolidge is known as the taciturn president, but he spoke from the heart and had wisdom. He said, after a flood devastated parts of Vermont in 1927, “If the spirit of liberty should vanish from other parts of our Union and the support of our institutions should languish, it could all be replenished from the generous store held by the people of the brave little state of Vermont.” This spirit also resides in the character of numerous classes of Dartmouth graduates who have built a treasure in the wilderness of the Upper Valley of the Connecticut River.
In 1926, 100 years ago, on the 150th anniversary of our independence, Coolidge said: “We live in an age of science and an abounding accumulation of material things. These did not create our Declaration [of Independence], our Declaration created them. The things of the spirit come first. Unless we cling to that, all our material property will turn to a barren scepter in our grasp. If we are to maintain the great heritage which has been bequeathed to us, we must be like-minded to the fathers who created it. We must cultivate the reverence which they had for things that are holy. We must follow the spiritual and moral leadership they showed.”
Lest the old traditions fail.
—Shel Prentice, 2311 Tradition Way, #102, Naples, FL 34105; shelprentice72@gmail.com