Back in 1754, Eleazar Wheelock, a minister and educator in Connecticut, decided to create a college for the ecclesiastical education of Native Americans and English youth. To do so, he needed to create a charter — an official document delineating the motives, organization and rights of the school, which required the approval of New Hampshire’s governor, John Wentworth.
A cleverly designed document, the charter gave Wheelock almost full power of Dartmouth’s direction and left little to the trustees. Much has changed since that famed document — now sealed in plexiglass in Rauner Special Collections Library — was forged.
So it’s my humble duty to bring the charter up to date and see how well the College is satisfying Wheelock’s original intents.
Hand scribed and filled with wisps and flares of playful penmanship, the charter is written on two large sheets of vellum — sheep or goat skin — and kept safely within two lucite cases. Peter Carini, a Rauner archivist, estimated that it would have taken a good scribe roughly several hours to complete the large document.
Hey — that beats GreenPrint.
When writing up the charter, Wheelock used the charter of the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University) as a model to avoid technical difficulties. Sixteen of our charter’s 35 clauses are copied verbatim from Princeton’s, while another four contain copied parts, according to College historian Jere Daniell’s research. In what would be a classic Writing 5 mistake today, our charter has no citation page.
If the College had an honor code back then, this would be CharterGate. It’s no surprise that a religious school that cheated on its charter also cheated in Religion 65.
Too soon?
Our name also lacks subtlety. Wheelock planned to name his school Wentworth College after New Hampshire governor Sir John Wentworth, but decided to bribe the English to sign our charter by naming it after Lord Dartmouth, a wealthy English benefactor of the College.
Moneybags took the bait, and we are now Dartmouth College. Our name’s about as meaningful as the title of your 4 a.m. midterm essay.
Too much of a stretch to link our College’s rather mercenary origin story with our modern proclivity for Wall Street? Suffice to say Wheelock might have been gunning for that sweet ecclesiastical internship in Lord Dartmouth’s Court.
The College was originally designed for “spreading Christian Knowledge among the Savages of our American Wilderness” and “the education and instruction of Youth of the Indian Tribes in this Land in reading, writing and all parts of Learning.” History and Native American studies professor Colin Calloway said that once we got the seed money, our motives quickly changed onto educating white youths, to the point where Samson Occom — a vital fundraiser for the College — called the College “alba mater” or “white mother” rather than alma mater. In fact, we only graduated three Native Americans before 1800. The College’s Native American studies program did not come into fuition until the presidency of then-College President John Kemeny.So the only thing being “spread” among “savages” at the College now is artichoke tapenade by crazed KAF patrons. Speaking of KAF: Wheelock’s first freshman class was roughly 25 students in an 18-square-foot log cabin. KAF post-10s feels the same.
The charter says we must also “accept and receive any rents, profits, annuities, gifts, legacies, donations or bequests of any kind whatsoever for the use aforesaid so nevertheless that the yearly value of the Premises do not exceed the sum of 6,000 pounds sterling.”
In 2013, the College’s total expenses came to around $835 million, which means six thousand pounds sterling roughly every six minutes.
Thank goodness simple rhymes like “cat/hat” and “ham/am” keep this behemoth relevant.
Daniell said in an interview that Wheelock had to “misappropriate” money — that means steal, for those watching at home — to get the school started.
It looks like they too got free Patagonias.
In 1819, in the famous case of Trustees of Dartmouth College v. Woodward, the Supreme Court ordered that our charter could not be changed, which for the first time allowed all corporations to exercise the rights of an individual.
Dartmouth thus gave unto us Citizens United.
According to Daniell, for 18 months leading up to the case, the College was split into Dartmouth University and Dartmouth College. But we survived.
And we’ll keep surviving, through the Ethiopian food at FoCo — yuck — the eau de manure of the Green and the return of Nantucket Reds.
All trustees, professors and tutors had to take an oath to King George III. Nowadays, all professors pledge allegiance to their tenure boards. Chemistry tutors take the oath to collect freshmen tears for their professors’ experiments. We all hail the trustees with our own Batman signal, the green Baker-Berry Library beacon.
King George III declined to comment. Classic George.
Our first trustees were gentlemen like “Baron of his Majesty’s Court of Exchequer”, “John Thornton of Clapham in the County of Surry Esquire”, “Josiah Roberts of the parish of Saint Edmund the King Lombard Street” and “Charles Hardy of the parish of Saint Mary-le-bonne.”
Wheelock tried to compose it solely of family and friends, creating, in a way, Dartmouth’s first fraternity.
Today, our trustees include Diana Taylor of Solera Capital LLC, James Coulter of TPG Capital and Stephen Mandel Jr. of Lone Pine Capital. We also have the chairman of General Electric and president of the WNBA, but our trustees have mostly moved from congregation to capital.
Now, we worship Ben Franklin.
Wheelock also claims that the “worthy Trustees having maturely consider’d the reasons and arguments in favour of the several Places proposed, have given the preference to the western part of our said Province lying on Connecticut River, as a situation most convenient for said School.”
Most convenient?! What’s convenient about a place where the wind hurts your face or your motto is “the voice of one crying out in the wilderness?” Why didn’t they choose a place where the wind pulls my parasail and my voice is crying out “more piña colada?”
Yes there were political advantages to choosing New Hampshire, including its familiarity to Wentworth and comparative lack of missionaries and schools. But Florida had all those advantages, I’m certain.
The trustees were also allowed to “purchase, receive or build any House or Houses or any other buildings as they shall think needful and convenient for the use of said Dartmouth College.” How is the River Cluster needful and convenient? Here’s a hypothetical transcript of a meeting between the first trustees led by Wheelock himself:
“What qualities do we want in the new dorms?”
“Well, we’re raising men to face the harsh, unforgiving world of Savages. It has to be equally harsh and unforgiving.”
“Good point Josiah.”
“And we need to be near the river to clean our breeches, waistcoats and frocks.”
“I hadn’t thought of that, Daniel. Well put.”
“And we should probably hide it from our enemies somehow. I know, let’s put a couple schools in front of it as decoys.”
“Excellent idea, Honorable William Earl of Dartmouth. So it’s set. Harsh, near the river and hidden. The freshman will love it. But what should we name it?”
“How about the Ri—” (dies).
“Oh that’s right, Smythe had smallpox and dysentery. Well, those were the Lord’s gifts. Bless you father for all that you giveth unto us. Amen.”
The original River dorms were named Smallpox and Dysentery Hall in remembrance of Sidney Stafford Smythe Knight, who died in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and seventy in service to our beloved trustees.
Only a century later were they changed to French and Judge Halls. Many have petitioned to return to the original names. If you’d like to join the fight for these old dorms, send a two pound sterling donation to BringSmallpoxandDysenteryBacktoDartmouth@dartmouth.edu.
The trustees are also granted the right to establish rules that are “not repugnant to the Laws and Statutes of our Realm of Great Britain.”
Well I’m sure the new hard alcohol ban would certainly be repugnant to the Realm of Great Britain, where the drinking age is 18 — or 16 when with an adult. Here, if adults are drinking, they’re arrested. Dost the Queen know about our goings on? I thinketh not.
Finally, the trustees were tasked to “animate the Students of said College to diligence and industray and a laudable progress in Literature.” If by diligence in literature you mean Yik Yak and Snapchat breaks every two paragraphs. We’re certainly effective in the industry of producing economics majors like a factory. Our only laudable progress in literature recently has been Andrew Lohse’s seminal text, “Confessions of an Ivy League Frat Boy: A Memoir.”
Over the course of nearly 250 years, the College has deviated somewhat from its original charter, adding an addendum here or there, but the College has striven to maintain Wheelock’s vision. Thankfully, we don’t teach Savages the Bible anymore. But we’ve moved from the puritanical, no-frills style of our founders. Hell, I’m writing this article on some glowing Satan box. Greek life is for pagan, Dionysus worshippers and FoCo for gluttonous hedonists. I think it’s high time we return to our forefathers’ ways and go back to our log cabins and candles. If you need me, I’ll be in Dysentery reading my Deuteronomy by candlelight.
