Vou. VLE: “N63.
NEW HAVEN, CONN., THURSDAY, MAY 26, 1898.
~ Price Ten Cents.
YALE 10 HER COUNTRY,
How the University Spoke at College
Street Hall Last Friday Evening—
The Addresses in Full of Pres-=
ident Dwight, Dr. Lines
and Professor Perrin.
At twenty minutes after seven last
Friday evening, at College Street Hall,
President Dwight of Yale opened a
meeting entirely without precedent in
the history of the University. It was
called to send the message of Yale to
her country. All of Yale was there to
send it, by worthy delegates, and by as
many of them as could crowd into the
old church, body, galleries, aisles, choir
loft and vestibule. The Yale under-
graduate was there, full-hearted and full-
toned; and those who had been Yale
undergraduates one or fifty years ago
perhaps; and the teachers of Yale were
there,—the Dean of the College and the
Dean of the Graduate School; profes-
sors from the Scientific Department,
teachers of Theology, the Director of
the School of Fine Arts, Freshman year
instructors, and one of the creators and
builders of the Department of Music.
It was hoped that it might be a repre-
sentative meeting. Those who had
counted most and worked hardest for
its success had nothing more to desire
after a look at pews and at platform.
To make it perfect, Yale was there from
the Camp as well as the Yale that is
still at home. Just before the meeting
opened, two young men in army blue
were crowded unwillingly forward on
the platiorm, and from the great crowd
in College Street Hall rose a long roar
of applause at the sight of Lieutenant
Weston and Sergeant Chappell of the
First Connecticut Light Artillery.
The old church was all red and white
and blue. A great flag almost covered
the space behind the platform and
others. draped the galleries and the
speaker’s desk. At one side of the
choir loft in the rear of the church were
the members of the Second Regiment
Band, and the seats directly in front of
the platform were held by the Glee
Clubs in full ranks.
Glee Club and band were there for a
good putpose and accomplished that
purpose well. From the moment Presi-
dent Dwight announced “America” as
the first ceremony of the evening the
meeting was a success. There may
have been members of that audience
who did not join in the national anthem,
but they were obscurely hidden. When
it came to the “Star Spangled Banner”’
later in the evening, the spirit was all
the more intense, and the whole audi-
ence followed the full verses of that
rather difficult piece for congregational
singing, with fine effect.
song ‘Bright College Years’ was sung.
It hadn’t, before that, been really sung,
however superb have been the efforts
of Glee Clubs to render it. The old
church shook with it, and when the
last line was reached the great audience
took time and emphasis like a trained
club, and rolled it out in such a volume
that people stopped on the streets blocks
away to listen. :
“For God, for Country, and for Yale.”
This last line, sung with such an em-
phasis and impressiveness, was the text
of the whole meeting. President
Dwight closed his brief introductory
address with it, and set the applause go-
ing for minutes by the very happy ex-
pression. The Rev. Dr: Lines made his
most effective point in emphasizing the
For a closing.
AT THE YALE OUARTERS:
righteousness of the cause of the war,
and made his most effective appeal to
the University audience present in ask-
ing them to use all their means and in-
fluence, whether they were at home or
afield, to hold the country throughout
the war, and aiter its close, true to the
consecrated catise of the struggle. In
Professor Perrin’s closing address the
one glowing thought was the subordi-
nation of every other need to the coun-
try’s need, which, as he said, should
close the University if occasion came,
and the splendid affirmation of the prin-
ciple that, whatever else a parent or a
teacher may do in guiding young men
at this crisis, they never could afford to
check or blunt the spirit of patriotism.
The meeting was the formal expres-
sion of the Yale sentiment. This had
been expressed frequently and emphati-
cally with all the eloquence of action.
The presence of sixty of the best under-
graduates at Niantic, the march to the
front of hundreds of graduates, and the
eager rush to substantially thank the
government and fit out the Yale, had
all been in evidence. That night these
various voices joined in a definite and
simple and unmistakable message of
the loyalty of all of Yale. |
The meeting was called to hear the
report of the Cruiser Fund Committee
and to formally present. the guns and
the colors; but that was the least it did.
It listened to the report and was audi-
bly pleased to hear that Yale, despite
a policy by the Committee of discourag-
ing subscriptions when the work had
hardly begun, had increased the total
asked for by fifty per cent. The meet-
ing listened to the reading of the reso-
lutions with the closest interest and ap-
plauded them to the echo and stood up
as one man in favor of their passage.
But what these Yale men were there
for was to express, as well as words and
songs and cheers can express, a feel-
ing which came to them when they
found their united country facing a
common foe and which had grown
stronger and deeper with them with
every day that had passed. That is
what gave the ring to the cheers, the
thunder to the applause and the soul to
the songs.
LIEUTENANT WESTON FOR SECRETARY.
It was in order to have a Secretary
and it was quite in order, the meeting
said, unanimously and- with cheers, that
Lieutenant Weston ‘should be the Secre-
tary. .
The President’s Address,
President Dwight opened the meet-
ing with a brief address, the earlier
part of which was substantially in the
following words:
We are not assembled this evening
to the end that we may by an effort, if
possible, awaken within our minds the
sentiment of patriotism. The senti-
ment is characteristic of our Univer-
sity. It has ever had an abiding-place
here. It animated, at the very begin-
ning, the souls of the ten ministers who
met together and by a _ formal and
solemn act laid the foundation of the
institution for the well-being of the
people, and it has come to us as an 1n-
spiring force through all the successive
generations from the earliest days of
the eighteenth century to these latest
days of the nineteenth. It manifested
itself gloriously in the time of the Rev-
olution, in 1775 to 1783, and equally so,
nearly a hundred years afterwards, in
the period of the Civil War. After a
similar manner it has moved members
of our own body to-day to devote them-
selves. to the country’s service, and it
moves the hearts of those whom they
leave behind them here to attend them
on their way by their wishes and hopes,
and by their prayers for their safety an
success. Our meeting is not for the
purpose of awakening the sentiment of
love for our country, but to the end
of giving formal expression to an ever-
abiding sentiment through the presenta-
tion of a gift to the Government at this
critical hour.
We are not assembled—again I would
say—that we may discuss with one
another the possibility of our offering
such a gift, or that we may devise of
consider some plan by which we may,