10
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YALE ALUMNI WHEEKLY
PRESENTATION EXERCISES,
The Class Oration and Class Poem
of °98.
The Class poem was delivered in
Battell Chapel on Monday afternoon,
June 27th, by Forsyth Wickes, and was
up to the high standard set by the class
poets of the past four or five years.
The opening stanzas are quoted
below:
Swifter than mist forms driving through
the grey
Our days go on
From whence we know not nor can say
Whither their flight may lead.
Each new-born creed
Seeking these mysteries to unfold
Dips deeper into doubts untold —_
And leaves the tide of years still drifting
Voiceless on its way.
But though from deep to deep we jour-
ney on :
And truth’s full sounding to faint echoes
fade, :
As we draw near shall we in terror turn
From out the way and lay our burdens
down?
FORSYTH WICKES, CLASS POET.
Sheaves of the field grown golden in the
sun,
Long Summer twilights into darkness
run,
Resistless is the burden of your song.
Deep in the bosom of Time’s crystal
glass
The sands are shifting with light-falling
grains,
The moments pass whose cloud or sun-
shine shapes
Into the nobler or the baser mould
Our slender lives. And yet no helmless
barque
On tides of chance we drift, but strong
and free
To hold past rocks and shoals where
sirens sound
The long drawn music of the heart’s de-
sire,
Or by still channels to the open sea
Bearing in gentle courage through the
storms
Till love make music of our smiles and
tears.
So free, so strong, we entered on the
way,
And wild with all the new life seemed to
bring,
Saw but the golden lining of the clouds,
The rose that opens by the slender
thorn;
And in a world half dream half light
passed on ;
Seeking to read in thousand separate
strains
The open secrets old yet ever new
Laid far within the inmost heart of
things.
No vacant hours made the day’s pas-
sage slow,
No dark blue dawning ushered in the
reign
Of binding sorrow. Care was then
light-winged
And at the door of knowledge far re-
moved
From the world’s nervous life some en-
tered in
To think again the thoughts of the great
minds
Who. first tore from truth’s book the
heavy seals.
And some with souls to gayer music
set,
Holding in fellowship all secrets lay,
Sought in the open manuscripts of life
Another reading of the self-same truths.
Slowly the fuller revelation came,
Through deeper streams and the long-
shadowed glades
Of Time’s rich heritage, and purpose,
dim
So long, dawned bright along the way
And many voices faded into one.
Ss. E. Bassett’s Class Oration.
The oration by Samuel Eliot Bassett
of Wilton, Conn., on the theme “The
Force of an Idea,’ was an unusually
fine piece of straightforward and vigor-
ous writing and speaking. Lack of
room prevents the WEEKLy from print-
ing more than the few extracts repro-
duced below:
“We are about to separate after four
years spent together. On this occasion
it has often been the custom to present
some truth that shall express the es-
sence of the real education, not of the
body or of the mind but of the self,
which we have received. But it seems
an idle thing to try to put into words
so easily spoken, what the lives of men
whom we have met daily have im-
pressed upon our minds with the true
eloquence, the eloquence of action.
These subtilely molding forces need no
help of passing words. Their effect is
sure. Let us rather before we part lin-
ger for a little while on the brooding
and ennobling influence which has been
over us; all that lies behind the name
we shall so soon use, Alma Mater Yale.
“The four years have not been spent
in vain. We have gained a little learn-
ing, much of which, except as applied
to our special fields, we shall probably
forget; a little culture, a little mental
training, a little glimpse into the great
minds of those who have pried: deepest
into life. Friendships are ours that
shall end only with life. We have met
men whose influence upon us can never
be lost. We thave obtained a little bet-
ter perspective. Estimates of our fel-
lows are based a [ittle more on what
they are and a little less on what they
seem. We realize a little more clearly
how very small a place after all we
occupy in the world. A wholesome dis-
trust in our own infallibility has been
developed and opinions of others re-
ceive a little more consideration. We
see a little better the possibilities of
life. We have progressed. But not a
man will say that any sum of improve-
ment in ourselves will express all that
we have received. Over all this and
fused inseparably with it is this intangi-
ble, impalpable, yet potent force, this
connotation of the word Yale. We go
forth stamped as Yale men. Unless
this invisible but unmistakable trade-
mark appears on each man he is a
spurious article.”
TO THE PRESIDENT.
“In thinking of our College and what
it stands for, our minds naturally turn
first of all to you, its official head. For
under your guidance the force of the
idea has been greatly increased by the
broadening of her sphere. As we have
advanced in our course the honor and
respect which your presence always in-
spires in us has increased, while the
_many acts of kindness of which the
world has never learned, which those
in need have received from your hands,
testify to the largeness of your heart.
We feel that the honor and prestige of
the University could not be in better
hands, and in parting fervently wish
that the years may be many during
which you continue to guide the Col-
lege we love.”
20 THE FACULTY.
“We have received from you much
wise instruction and our minds have
been trained by, you for our future
work. But the greatest good, perhaps,
which we carry away from your class
rooms, will be the influence upon us of
your personalities. The silent appeals
which you have made to whatever of
manliness there is in us, will continue
to influence our lives long after the
greater part of our text-book learning
has passed away. We cannot say fare-
well to all under whom we have studied.
Since we parted a year ago one has been
called home. I think no one who was
privileged to sit under the instruction
of Dr. Thompson failed to appreciate
the earnestness and strength of his
character and the deep interest he took
in every man under his care. By his
death Yale has lost a scholarly instruc-
tor and we a faithful friend.
In parting we wish to thank you for
the personal interest you have taken in
us, for the insight you have tried to
give us into the world’s history and
meaning, and for the wise counsels you
have given us. May you live to confer
the same benefits upon our sons!”
TO THE CLASS.
“This is our formal parting time. We
meet no more together by ourselves as
a class with the consciousness of part-
ing over us. What is our last word to
each other? Is it not that we are
brothers, sons of one common mother?
Diversity of conditions, of interests, of
S. E.:- BASSETT, CLASS ORATOR.
tastes cannot break the bond which
binds us together. As long as memory
shall last the close association of four
years in the class room and on the
Campus will give to any member of the
Class of Ninety-Eight a peculiar claim
upon us. We are not all here. Four
of our number have been graduated
from the world into the next life.
Some responded to the first call of our
country because they believed she had
a right to the services of her best men,
and are now enduring the drudgery of
the common soldier. The time has
come for us who are left to say good-
bye to the happiest years of our life.
Just beyond us lies the world in which
we are to win a place for ourselves and
honor for Yale. The sorrow of parting
from the old sweet life is overwhelmed
by the shouts of the new life beckon-
ing us. One more tight grasp of the
hand and our college life is over. But
its memories shall last.”
The DeForest Oration.
The DeForest prize-speaking con-
test was held in Battell Chapel on Fri-
day afternoon, June 24, and was won by
Herbert Wescott Fisher of New Haven.
His subject was “The Italian Plays of
Shakespeare.” The other contestants
with their subjects follow: Charles Ed-
mund Merrill, Jr., of New York City,
“Tennyson”; Robert Kilborn Root of
New Haven, “Archbishop Laud”: Ed-
ward Clark Streeter of Chicaso, “The
Romances of Defoe’; Henry Burt
Wright of New Haven, “The Decline of
Spain’; Herbert Draper Gallaudet of
Washington, D. C., “The Jacobites.”
The compositions were all well written,
but suffered much in delivery, Mr.
Fisher’s being the exception.
The closing portion of Mr. Fisher’s
oration follows:
“But it has been said that Shakespeare
has no heroes,—only heroines. And
what redeems these romances from a
suggestion of sentimentality is the true
loveliness of the women. Bassanio’s
reverent homage was altogether de-
served by that gently dominating mis-
tress of his. Portia is the queenliness
of mercy—a strong, sweet nature, to
which one might confidently go in
hours of despondency. Hers was the
heart and hers the womanly courage
Please hurry to this office every scrap
of war news about Yale men which comes
your way. Put in every detail you can.
Please send this news as fast as it comes
to you. It 1s especially necessary to get it
promptly. |
to make a man brave; and, if ever Bas-
sanio met reverses in life, they must
have been grandly submerged in her
love. There is a contagious buoyancy
about her: the ripe optimism of 2
woman in character, if a girl in yeats.
For between the lines we may read the
life of a soul, not harshly disciplined.
and so marred, but nevertheless tutored
by some mild griefs of her own, and so
mellowed:—deeply aware of the sor-
row of the world. Hardly enviable was
the position in which her father’s whim
had left her. ‘By my troth, Nerissa,’
she would sometimes say, ‘my little
body is aweary of this great world.’
But in another moment, with charac-
teristic rebound, she would be breaking
merry comparisons on her foolish
suitors. When Bassanio at last both
won and rescued her, she was caught
up in a rapture of tender emotion. For
after the irksomeness of a life which
had held in fruitless abeyance her
womanly talents, she lavished them with
all the more joy now that she had
found an object.
“There are men. perhaps who find
Portia rather too wise. But indeed her
little homilies are all sweetness, and
entirely casual,—not officious. More-
over, they are incidental to her deeds.
She is a woman and her thoughts musi
speak, but her deeds speak the louder,
and both spring from.a kindly and
humanitarian nature. Fortunately her
wisdom did not afflict her with any
constructive theory of life; she simply
lived and was lovely. To make others
happy was as the breath of life to her.
and she entered on her judicial exploit
as blithe as a maid preparing for a
masque-ball. And then that playfulness
of hers, so gently arch and loving-mis-
chievous, that sparkled on the surface
of her deep woman’s nature! There
seemed to be nothing wanting to make
gracious music of Bassanio’s life.
“Such are some oi the creations with
which Shakespeare has adorned human
literature. It is always the quality oi
his greatness that he wins the uncon-
scious surrender of his audience, and
never more effectually than here, where
the romance of life supplements its ©
reality. The ultimate spring of this
power is of course the reality: in a
broad sense, realism. It is something
which resides in the obvious human
coloring of all he writes. He has
nothing abstruse, however close his ob-
servation. When Shylock says, Stil]
have I borne it with a patient shrug’
he illustrates a scientific truth labori-
ously ferreted out by Darwin, namely,
that the shrug is a physical expression
of patience. But here it is shown in its
obvious human aspect. And this as-
pect is fundamental with our poet. He
assumes certain human passions, biases,
intuitions, as the element in which we
all move and have our being,—things
to be presupposed, not dissected; and
those who would read philosophical
systems into Shakespeare, not only mis-
conceive but depreciate him. For it is
the work of mere learning to cope with
sage and bewildering problems ;—genius
alone can appeal to child and philoso-
pher alike. What a man believes in the
abstract will not determine how he hates
or loves or laughs or cries, or even
his emotion toward the universe; and
these are what strike home.
“Tf, therefore, Shakespeare is the
prince of poets, is Matthew Arnold al-
together felicitous when he calls poetry
a criticism of life? Is it not rather an
exposition of lifeP—or, better still, a
crystallization of life? For besides real-
ism, there is a second element in
Shakespeare’s. greatness; and that is
ideally carried so far as in these
plays it becomes what we have chosen
to call romance; but everywhere it is
that which differentiates the artist from
the mere intense observer like Tolstoi.
Life as it comes to us is uneven, ex-
asperating, with many odd ends in
search of a connection; and of such we
may have our surfeit outside of books.
But within the covers of Shakespeare
we find that selective tact which copies
things with a sense of symmetry; re-
jecting all that contributes nothing to
a desired effect, and touching only the
heart of experience; so that even his
tragedies leave us satisfied.
“Thus this realist who draws from
life, this idealist who combines his
strokes in harmony, has that immortal
power to master us like music or the
sound of the near sea. So long as
humanity is human and can sympathize
with its own heart, it will never cease
to love the world which Shakespeare
made; and in proportion as our nine.
teenth century lives are specialized and
dry, do we need in particular that fresh,
romantic side of him, which is foynd
in the Italian Plays.”