Days of Splendor, Hours Like Dreams

Four Years at a Small College in the Still North (1963–1967)

In the 1960s, a young American president helped initiate the civil rights movement, captured the imagination of a nation with the establishment of the Peace Corps, launched the space age, nurtured the birth of the computer/digital age, and began the escalation of a war in Southeast Asia that exacted a horrific toll on the lives and emotions of his countrymen. Sheltered by the foothills of the White Mountains from the world events swirling around it, Dartmouth College resplendently approached 1969—the 200th anniversary of its founding as a school for Native Americans. As the smallest of the Ivy League schools, it was known for its dedication to a rigorous undergraduate education, its isolation from urban centers and sports prowess, and the intriguing manifestations of its all-male culture. In Days of Splendor, Hours like Dreams, author and 1967 Dartmouth College graduate Charles “Chuck” A. Hobbie offers a detailed, frank, and unpretentious memoir. Hobbie remembers the splendor and the fullness of his undergraduate days in the last decade of Dartmouth’s all-male culture. He recounts the minutiae of his courses; friendships with classmates; his dates; and the faculty; academic, social, musical, and sporting events; the extraordinary beauty of the college’s location; and his evolving affection for the remarkable school where hours passed like dreams.