Vou. VII Nos Ze
NEW HAVEN, CONN., WEDNESDAY, MARCH 29, 1899.
Price Tan Crnrs.
THE TENEYCK.
Better Speaking—The Close Contest
of Coffin and Gould.
There was more good speaking at the
TénEyck this year than last, for which
some disconsolate friends of Yale ora-
tory are duly thankful. If Yale will
only work seriously at this problem,
there may be such a thing as platform
presence at Yale as one of the results
of Yale education. It does not -con-
stitute a bewilderingly artistic feature
of the University landscape at present.
One can see a great deal better speaking
at prize exhibitions at high schools than
is often offered in the Junior and Senior
years at Yale. And if a Yale student
towards the end of his course can’t
speak a piece of his own creation better
than a high school scholar can deliver
somebody else’s oration, it is unfortu-
nate.
The College evidently expected
something better, or at least the Class
of Nineteen Hundred did. But that
Class always seems to be looking for
good things and to be backing them
up. The Juniors attended in~- good
numbers. There was, however, a most
painful row of vacant pews in the front
of the Chapel, a fact which ought to be
taken into consideration in judging the
speakers. Some of the Academic Fac-
ulty were there.’ :
The oration on “St. Paul,” of Bascom
Johnson, of Washington, D. C., the
first speaker, was mainly biographical,
finished in form, and at times was de-
livered with grace and force. The ef-
fect was marred by hestitation at several
points.
Walter Sharp Page, of Columbus,
Ohio, delivered an interesting and
thoughtful piece on
with a good voice and with simplicity
and directness. He made much, but
not the most of a subject well suited for
effective oratorical delivery. His voice
was good and gestures very bad.
William Sloane Coffin of New York,
to whom the prize was awarded, spoke
third. Mr. Coffin treated the subject
of “St. Paui” in rather an original man-
ner, devoting himself to the Apostle’s
influence upon the American idea of
liberty. The paper was logical and
spirited, and claimed quite enough even
=
WILLIAM SLOANE COFFIN. |
for St. Paul. The delivery was marked
by a fine earnestness, which was kept
well within bounds. The gestures
showed that they had been carefully
planned and yet were almost natural.
The oration on “St. Paul” by Frank
Marion Atterholt, Jr., of Akron, O.,
contained many things of merit, but
“Charlemagne,”
lacked unity. The delivery was con-
versational rather than oratorical.
“Schiller” was the subject of the
oration by Maurice Philip Gould of
Wamego, Kansas. It divided the
honors of the afternoon with Mr. Cof-
fin’s oration. Mr. Gould had the best
attention from the audience of any of
the speakers of the afternoon. He took
principally the man Schiller, giving so
much of a criticism of his works as
showed Schiller. He had caught the in-
tense German’s spirit, and in the con-
struction of his piece made a good se-
lection of those points of his charac-
ter and his work which had dramatic
force. Some critics said Mr. Gould’s
piece was “windy” and too theatrical.
It was not windy because it was too
well thought out. Whether or not it
-was too theatrical depends largely on
the point of view; but Mr. Gould did
go off his feet.
The delivery was good. There
was too great deliberation at times,
which looked to some like straining
after effect and to others like a recogni-
tion by the speaker that he had a piece
that required some effort to show that
in the writing and the speaking of it
the man was contained. Mr. Gould’s
gestures came rather nearer being
natural than any one’s else. The time
will come when speakers will be pro-
duced at Yale who will express them-
selves by their gestures, and not con-
sider gestures an unfortunate necessity
for a public appearance.
It is worth while going into a single
piece to this extent for the reason that
the speaker attempted so much and
came so near accomplishing it. He did
not quite do it, and there is no disposi-
tion to criticise the sanity of the ver-
dict which gave Mr. Coffin the first
place in the final judgment of the Fac-
ulty. Mr. Coffin was himself always.
His speech was so clear that no auditor
with any perception could mistake it.
He gave the impression of knowing
exactly what he was talking about as
well as of feeling what he said. When
one compared the two pieces his feel-
ing was that Mr. Coffin was sure to do
good platiorm work in the future, with
promise of constant development and
increasing power; and that Mr. Gould
might sail a rather unusual course on
this sea if he worked over his rigging
long enough and secured and kept on
hand plenty of ballast.
Henry Thomas Hunt, of Cincinnati,
Ohio, lacked assurance and distinctive-
ness of utterance in his piece, which
was the last on “St, Paul’; hence,
unfortunately, the audience were unable
to judge of the good points of his paper
as a whole.
Howard Speer, of Cincinnati, who had
chosen “The American Soldier’ had a
subject of great opportunity. He left a
feeling that if he had done a great deal
of hard work he might have added to
grace and a sense of the picturesque, a
much stronger grasp of the solid side
of his subject, which would have made
a great oration.
The. last speaker, Charlton Brice
Thompson of Covington, Kentucky, left
a very good impression. He had an
honest, vigorous piece and an honest,
vigorous delivery, although the latter
gave too much the impression that he
was trying to drive it.in every time.
He used his head too much in gesturing
and his voice too much all the while.
There was no perspective of inflection.
The construction of the piece was un-
fortunate. His subject was ‘Gladstone
and Bismarck,’ and the antithesis on
which he built was overburdened. It
was a section of Gladstone’s character ’
versus a section of Bismarck’s charac-
ter, a page of one against a page of the
other. It constantly opened the temp-
tation of sweeping assertion, which was
not always resisted in the interest of
historical accuracy.
RETIRING RECORD BOARD.
H. H. Tomkins, Jr.
M. Seudder.
Photograph by Pach.
-E. F. Hinkle.
H. B. B. Yergason. H. Mason.
C. E. Hay, Jr. (Chm.) J. B. Adams.
The Winner.
William Sloane Coffin, brother of
Henry Sloane Coffin, a TenEyck
speaker of the Class of Ninety-Seven, |
was announced the winner of the Henry
James TenEyck prize speaking con-
test, held in Battell Chapel on Friday
afternoon of last week at three o’clock.
Mr. Coffin comes from New York,
where he prepared for Yale at the Cut-
ler School. Since entering College he
has been prominently connected with
the Young Men’s Christian Association
work, having had charge with a class-
mate, during the present year, of the
mission work of the Association, on
Grand avenue. At the annual meeting
of the Association recently, he was
elected Treasurer. In the Junior
appointments he received a Philosophi-
cal Oration.
President Dwight presided at the
Exhibition and, as heretofore, all mem-
bers of the Academic Faculty present
were the judges.
The attendance this year, while not to
be compared with that of ten or twelve
years ago, was noticeably larger than
for the past year or two.
ELI WHTPNEY NAMED
Another Candidate for the Corpora-
. tion to be Put Forward.
To the Editor of YALE ALUMNI WEEKLY:
Sir:—In view of the emphatic manner
in which the several nominations for the
vacancies on the Yale Corporation
have been announced, I feel that the
alumni should be advised of another
name, the enthusiastic nomination of
which is already assured.
I refer to Mr. Eli Whitney of the
Class of Sixty-Nine. In the near
future this name will be presented to
the alumni in a letter inviting attention
to his qualifications for the position, the
recognition of which has already led to
the vigorous and unsolicited support
of his friends. ~— A.
New Haven, Conn., Mar. 23, 1899.
THE NEXT ADMINISTRATION,
Things That Will Go and Things
That Will Remain.
iif.
A graduate of Yale in the sixties,
returning in the nineties, finds very little
to remind him of his own Yale. The
material setting of the Yale life is al-
most wholly-changed, and the life itself
is changed. The graduate in the nine-
ties, who returns in the following twen-
ties, will probably find more material
reminders of his own Yale, but the life
itself will be strange to him. Under-
graduate life during the next adminis-
tration will probably change much
more rapidly than it has during that
now closing. This cannot be avoided,
and must not be regretted. Whatever
good things pass away will be replaced
by better things, and whatever bad fea-
tures disappear will not be missed.
Some of the latter must be encouraged
to go.
The solidarity of life during the two
lower years is one of the good things
sure to disappear and be replaced by
something better. This seems at first
hard to accept; many will not accept
it, until it is an accomplished fact in the
face of their protests and petitions. The
change has already begun to show itself.
The great increase in the size of the
classes has already affected this soli-
darity of life considerably. The intro-
duction of either the elective or the
group system in these years will give
it the death blow. Increasing oppor-
tunity to graduate on the satisfactory
performance of certain courses of study,
whether two or five years be required
therefor, will hasten its disappearance.
Class feeling, class rivalries, class col-
lisions will largely disappear with it.
They can be spared, although they were
good things in their day and genera-
tion. Intellectual and social rivalries
will more than fill their place.
All the pettinesses of the marking
system; of “allowed cuts and “dry
