YALE ALUMNI WHEEKLY
AT.
STUDENTS AT THE FENCE,
The ceremonies were really under way
when the guests began to gather at
Dwight Hall and the Library at 2
o'clock. By that time most of the un-
dergraduates who had not been detained
by some such urgent duty as short foot-
ball practice, were present at the Fence,
in front of Durfee. Under the leader-
ship of the Glee Clubs they sang the
best of the College songs with excellent
effect. They cheered the new Presi-
dent; they cheered the ex-President;
they cheered the President of Harvard,
the President of Cornell, the President
of Chicago, and the President of many
another university. They gave just the
right air of life and spirit to an occasion
full of ceremonial dignity.
The robes of the different officers of
universities, the uniforms of the Gov-
ernor’s staff, and the familiar faces of
men well known in affairs of State,
made the central objects of a crowd that
swarmed all through the Campus.
Almost on the minute, the procession
started on its way to the Chapel, through
the long columns of eager spectators,
who were bent on using that opportunity
to learn the face and form of many men
already known to them in other ways.
Conspicuous among the Academic robes
was the brilliant scarlet of Mgr. Conaty,
of the Catholic University of Washing-
ton. The names of those in this pro-
cession and the order of their march
are given further~on in this article.
It is unnecessary to say that Battell
Chapel was filled to overflowing. by the
guests, the Yale Faculty, and the grad-
tates. The only question was,—how
many more graduates than could be
seated, would be allowed in the aisles
and on the stairs? In the rear gallery
were the New Haven Symphony Orches-
ta and a large student chorus. The
music was particularly good. For the
second time in Yale’s history, the Com-
mencement Ode, written by Edmund
clarence Stedman, and set to music by
-rofessor Parker, was produced. The
work of the orchestra on this composi-
ion was magnificent. The 65th psalm,
io the tune of York, and “Ein Fester
Burg,’ were joined in by the entire
audience with splendid effect.
If one part more than another of the
chapel ceremonies could be picked out
as most impressive and most striking,
it was the moment when the President
dosed his Inaugural with the few sen-
tences of his peroration. Those last
few sentences not only carried up the
speaker, but all his audience to a very
high pitch of feeling. The applause as
the new President took his seat was
very long continued.
It seemed most natural and most
pleasant to hear again the voice of ex-
President Dwight, whose opening prayer
was a most feeling one. The short
speech of Mr. Twichell, which was not
generally anticipated by the audience,
was a very clear enunciation of the Cor-
poration’s position in placing President
Hadley in charge; and led very fittingly
to the formal induction into office, when
Mr. Twichell, as the senior member of
the Corporation, received from Mr.
Stokes, the Secretary, the seal and the
charter of the College, and placed them
in the hands of the new President.
Mr. Twichell spoke as follows:
Mr. Twichell’s Speech.
As in length of service the senior
member of the Corporation, the duty
falls to me in these inauguration exer-
cises of giving into the hands of the
president-elect the insignia of the office
to which he is called :—viz., the Charter
and the Seal of the University—on that
wise in due form, representatively per-
forming the act of inducting him into
it,—of investing him with its title and all
that goes therewith; its dignity, au-
thority, responsibility. |
It is expected that according to cus-
tom this act shall be accompanied with
some brief statement of the trust the
committal of which to his keeping is so
betokened. It is a trust large and mani-
fold, yet the substance of it may be in-
dicated in a few. words.
It is, comprehensively, to employ the
advantage of the position he is hence-
forward—God grant it may be for many
years—to occupy, in shaping, according
to the measure of his opportunity, the
policy, life, development of this Uni-
versity, conformably to the ideals proper
in general to an institution of the higher
education in this age, in deference at the
same time to those particular principles
which may be considered as in some
sense, or in some degree, peculiar to
this institution. a
It is evidently not to be desired that
the several universities of a great people,
though closely akin in their function and
aim, shall be of an uniform pattern. It
is a thing felicitous in itself, and salu-
tary to the public interest they are ap-
pointed together to serve, that each
possess and preserve its individual traits
and manifest a character of its own.
YALE TO PRESERVE HER TYPE.
If it is true of a nation that it is not
well for it to break with its past, it is
equally true of a university. Now this
Yale of ours has in all her history been
marked by a certain somewhat decided
conservative habit, by a tendency to
cling with considerable tenacity to means
PROF. JOHN C. SCHWAB
Of the Committee of Arrangements.
and methods of education that are tradi-
tional; by a reluctance to displace studies
that are the immemorial instruments of
discipline, in favor of modern rivals.
Not that she has been stubborn against
change; her record proves that; but
unquestionably she has not been facile
to it; has not been quick to respond to
urgent, even clamorous counsels press-
ing it upon her.
Nor may we be ashamed of this. We
conceive it intrinsically becoming the
scholastic community and a permanent
condition of genuinely sound learning
and broad culture to have an attent
ear to the great teachers and teaching of
former times. There are old things
that have passed away, and there are
old things that have not passed away.
There is an ancient wisdom, handed
down from generation to generation,
legacy of the mighty and the fruitful
Past, wrought out in the long conflict
of light with darkness, of truth with
error, by the toil of all the ages of
thought; monument incomparable of hu-
man inquiry and endeavor, embalming
the most instructive annals of the human
intellect and of the human heart, on
which rises the structure of all later
knowledge and tiought, and of our
~civilization itself, leading up to the
splendid enlargements of the present,
from which will date the more splendid
unfolding of the future which we feel
is at the door; acquaintance with which
has been hitherto, in the proof of ex-
perience, of virtue unsurpassed to nour-
ish the springs of intellectual and moral
life; and which, therefore, we judge,
claims perpetual large remembrance
and room in the place of liberal learning.
It is as one who while alive—as he
ought to be—to the just new demands
of times that are new and who recog-
nizes that in a world that is moving on
the work of qualifying youth to act upon
its stage the part of educated men must
of necessity move on, is by inheritance
and by providential training,—and it is
our happiness to reflect that he was born
a child of Yale, which from the cradle
has been his home,—grounded in the
conviction of the honors due to the wis-
dom that is ancient, and of its abiding
practical uses unto the true ends of edu-
cation, that Prof. Hadley is summoned
to the helm of this University at this
period.
It is fit to be further remarked that
by the transaction of this hour he will
be constituted the official head of an
American university.
From the rise of our existence as a
nation, this institution is historically and
by a profound living sympathy identified
_ with the distinctive political idea on the
basis of which the fabric of our national
growth and advance has thus far been
built up, to which the hope of our des-
tiny as a people is committed ;:—that of
the democratic principle of civil govern-
ment. .
In the armed struggle through which
our independence was originally won,
Naphtali Daggett, then lately President
of -Yale College—the sixth in order—
though an aged man, shouldered his gun
and went to the field. The blood of the
sons of Yale has been freely shed, even
unto death, in defense and maintenance
of the faith of government of the peo-
ple, by the people, for the people, as
ordained of divine providence, to be
tried, proved, exemplified in a signal
manner, for the benefit of mankind on
our soil. Wherever else within the
bounds of the Republic of the United
States it may be the fashion to sneer at
that faith, or to adopt toward it the
tone of cavil and disparagement, where-
ever else the sentiment of enthusiasm
for the flag of our country is blown
coldly upon, it belongs to the University
as the home of liberal thoughts, the
natural ally of all human freedoms, the
school of an enlightened citizenship, the
nursery of public spirit, the parent of
public leaders, to champion that faith;
with no uncertain voice to confess and
to teach its creed; to stand by it in the
difficulties with which it has to contend
and loyally help it to prevail.
Surely it is among the responsibilities
devolved on him whom we are met to
inaugurate President of our alma mater,
as One chosen to superintend the educa-
tion of youth in the land of Washington
and of Lincoln—by him recognized as
such we fully believe,—to see to it, so
far as in him lies, that his scholars pass
out into life endued with the mind of a
generous patriotism.
A CHRISTIAN PRESIDENT.
One thing more. The trust which he
is here to accept, is to be conflded to him
distinctly as a Christian man.
The founders of Yale College were
men of religion, believers in the supreme
moment of the spiritual realities divine
and human, in the supreme potency of
spiritual quickening to invigorate and
ennoble the life alike of individuals and
of communities. They deemed—to quote
the words of a great master of our Eng-
lish tongue,—that ‘of all teaching, the
sublimest is to teach a man that he has
a soul.’
In the two centuries since their day,
by the breath of the inspiration of the
ever-living God, vast new realms of
knowledge, by them inconceivable, have
been conquered, liberating the mind of
men into vast new ranges of thought,
insight, understanding. Yet has not
that conviction, cherished by the fathers,
of the transcendent import of the spirit-
ual factor of life been thereby super-
seded or obscured amongst us. It has
continued to be held by practically the
entire body of the governors. adminis-
trators, instructors and benefactors of
this institution to the present day. It is
not questionable that in the brotherhood
at large of the sons of Yale now living
and in the yet wider circle of those who
are accounted her. constituency, it 1s
earnestly believed that the truth that is
above all truth beside, and that by the
law of highest obligation is so to be
reckoned’ in these classic halls, is the
truth of Christ; that of all teachers. of
the wisdom which is the crown at once
of learning and of manhood, Christ
abides, and must ever abide, first and
chief. |
Accordingly it is the hope and the
expectation that he who is now to_ be
set as administrative head over our Uni-
versity will follow his illustrious pre-
decessors in identifying his office with
an appropriate, acknowledged care to
the interest of the Christian faith, as
vitally relevant to the objects which it
is sought to accomplish here.
Of this he is aware; nor will he, we
are persuaded, disappoint that hope.
This is a day in which we stand on the
threshold of a future which we grate-
fully rejoice to feel is bright with
promise. It is, also, to some of us a
day filled with memories. The air about
us seems thronged with wunseen pres-
ences. We hear again voices that have
long been silent. Forms venerable and
beloved that have been sadly missed
from these familiar places pass before
us. Among them is James Hadley.
What better can we wish—and it is
eae Seats anceasaerssens ee
a wish now rising to heaven on the
wings of many pravers,—than that the
mantle of his spirit, of his integrity, jus-
tice, discretion, magnanimity, humility
piety, may, by God’s blessing, rest upon
his son. :
And now, sir, it remains for me to
place in your hands these emblems of
the trust we are present to transfer to
vous charge:—this Charter and _ this
eal.
You receive them; and in the name of
the Corporation and with our united
benediction, to which is joined that of
the whole fellowship of the children of
our common Mother, I pronounce you,
Arthur Twining Hadley. installed in the
office of the Presidency of Yale Uni-
versity.”
The Inaugural of President Hadley
and the Congratulatory address of Pro-
fessor Fisher were given in full in the
last issue of the WEEKLY, and so are not
repeased in this account of the celebra-
ion.
The ceremonies were not over until
well after 5 o’clock. At their close the
guests and the graduates went over to
the Art School to greet the President
at his reception. This reception was
very largely attended. It was entirely
for the men and was not hedged
about with too much restriction as to
dress.
The contagious enthusiasm of the
evening celebration was best shown by
the way in which the graduates were
continually drawn into the procession.
The Yale Club of New York, under the
leadership of Noah H. Swayne, 2d., had
shown its enterprise by not only ap-
pearing in New Haven with a good dele-
gation for the parade, but with a good
supply of uniforms. A number of these
were distributed through the Graduates’
Club and others through the Campus
as the parade was forming. Men came
from receptions or dinners in‘dress suits
and other paraphernalia to look on, and
shortly disposed of coats and hats where
they could, put on the capes and mor:
tar boards and shouldered torches.
One of the best effects of the proces-
sion was seen on its close, as the line
came through the northern end of Col-
lege Street, turned down Elm, crossed
the Green through Temple, and came
up again through Chapel Street and en-
tered the Campus.
One of the best results of the proces-
sion was the gathering of the under-
graduates after it, around a forty-foot
bonfire on the Gymnasium lot, and the
enthusiasm with which the great crowd
cheered the undergraduate leaders.
This re-assembling of Yale in force with
old-fashioned spirit, was a fitting sequel
to the Inaugural address, with its in-
sistence on the democratic spirit of Yale
and the preservation of all the good ele-
ments of its community life.
The Student Celebration.
When night closed in the Campus
took on the appearance of a fairyland.
Every window which looked onto the
quadrangle showed a light, and on the
towers of Vanderbilt, Osborn and Phelps
Halls red lanterns had been set at close
intervals. A string of these lanterns
had been run up on the flagstaff of
Alumni Hall and a score of the same sort
swung over the roof, outlining the front
of the grey old place. Hundreds of
Japanese lanterns hung in long curves
from building to building and over the
doors and archways on every side.
No place that lent itself to illumi-
nation was neglected, and the effect
was very beautiful. Behind the statue
of Abraham Pierson, first President
of Yale College, apeared the word
“Vale” in letters eight feet high, formed
of Japanese lanterns, and the statue it-
self seemed to join in the general jubila-
tion, for it held on its bent arm a lantern
of red.
Suspended over the driveway between
Old South Middle and Vanderbilt Hall
burned a gigantic “H” of lanterns, and
near it but in front of the former build-
ing a “Y” which came out of the same
box was placed, and a little further along
two more. One of the prettiest sights
imaginable was the decoration of the
oak tree near the Sophomore fence at
the end of North College. On the lower
branches of this tree, which grow nearly
horizontal and have a wide spread,
burned dozens of red lanterns, and all
the way to the topmost limb the lights
were hung at irregular intervals, giving
the effect of a monster Christmas tree.
[Continued on 52d page.|