QUARTER CENTURY RECORD * CLASS OF -1887- YALE COLLEGE GIFT OF W.A. Setchell QUARTER-CENTURY RECORD, 1887-1912 s H '" 5 ^ a . QUARTER CENTURY RECORD OF THE CLASS OF EIGHTEEN EIGHTYSEVEN YALE COLLEGE COMPILED BY THE SECRETARY OF THE CLASS GEORGE E^HILL 1887-1912 PRINTED FOR THE CLASS SECRETARIES BUREAU UNDER THE DIRECTION OF YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS NEW HAVEN CONNECTICUT PREVIOUS PUBLICATIONS BY THE CLASS Triennial Record of the Class of 1887 in Yale College. Edited and published by Andrew Frink Gates, Class Secretary. 59 pp. 1 por. Press of The Case, Lockwood & Brainard Co., Hart- ford, Conn., 1891. Sexennial Record of the Class of 1887 in Yale College. Edited and published by George E. Hill, Class Secretary. 69 pp. 2 pi. Press of The Marigold Printing Co., Bridgeport, Conn., 1893. Decennial Record of the Class of 1887 in Yale College. Edited and published by George E. Hill, Class Secretary. 89 pp. 1 pi. Press of The Marigold Printing Co., Bridgeport, Conn., 1S97. Quindecennial Record of the Class of 1887 in Yale College. Edited and published by George E. Hill, Class Secretary. 131 pp. 2 pi. Press of The Standard Association, Bridgeport, Conn., 1903. Vicennial Record of the Class of 1887 in Yale College. Edited and published by George E. Hill, Class Secretary. 182 pp. 1 pi. The Marigold-Foster Printing Co., Bridgeport, Conn., 1909. 4G4647 CONTENTS Preface 5 Twenty-five Years of '87 Twenty-five Years After 11 Reminiscences and Changes 17 Andrew W. Phillips 47 The Quarter-Century Reunion The Story of the Reunion 55 Alumni Weekly Account Ill The Class Register 114 Sheffield's Speech at Alumni Meeting 118 Biographies and Bibliography Biographies of Graduates 123 Biographies of Non-Graduates and Ex-Members . . . 422 Bibliography 454 Miscellaneous and Statistical The Bennetto Scholarship 489 List of Recipients of John Hubbard Curtis Prize . . . 494 List of Recipients of Thomas Hamlin Curtis Prize . . 494 The Alumni Fund 495 Statistics 497 Occupations 497 Register of Attendance at Reunions 497 Marriages and Children 501 College Record of Children 509 Necrology 511 Locality Index 512 Roll of the Class , 515 TWENTY-FIVE YEARS OF '87 TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AFTER REMINISCENCES AND CHANGES ANDREW W. PHILLIPS TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AFTER The unwritten law requires that somewhere between the covers of an '87 Class report there shall be found a bird's-eye view of the Class as a whole, showing its collective progress, its place in the greater army of Yale men, suggesting who wear the uniforms of commissioned and non-commissioned officers and how those men who march in the ranks meet the brunt of battle and the fatigue of the "hike." The ranks of our division of the Yale army are not as full as they were in 1887, for there have fallen by the way nineteen and three-tenths per cent of all those who started together from Center Church in June of that year. In other words, of the one hundred and fifty graduates, twenty-nine are known to have died, and one hundred and twenty-one are enrolled as living members. Those who have died since the last report are five in number. Hare's death just as the last book went to press, was noted in that book. In the February following (1910), Tom Curtis, our vale- dictorian, died in Portland, Ore., an unexpected end to an illness not at first deemed serious. Mrs. Curtis with their little daughter, then two years of age, came back to New Haven, her home before her marriage, and is living there. Within a month (March, 1910), Henry Ivison, who had been out of health for some time, died at Litchfield, Conn., where he had been living for some years. He left a widow and two sons, the elder of whom is now (1914) twenty-five years old. Two years passed before there was another break in our ranks, when word came (March, 1912) of the death of Jack Hume. He was one of the men of whom we had seen but little at Class reunions, as the only time he had been back with the Class was at Vicennial, in 1907. He had been for more than twenty years actively engaged in his profession in Chicago, and had served one or more terms as municipal judge, a position which he occupied at his death. He was unmarried. In 1913 there were two deaths. Charlie Hinkle died very sud- denly in that year, at Hot Springs, Va., where he usually spent 12 TWENTY-FIVE YEARS OF '87 some time in the spring, his winters being passed in the South, although his legal home continued to be at Osterville, Mass. His family, consisting of a widow, a daughter and two sons, continue to reside at Osterville. In the summer of 1913, while engaged upon the biographical work for this book, the Secretary, being unable to elicit replies from Bonar, sought other sources of information in Memphis, Tenn., where he had lived for some years, and learned that he had recently died in Detroit, where he had gone temporarily. He left a widow, but no children. Of those who still march behind the '87 banner there are but few stragglers. When the roll is called, they nearly all are either present or accounted for. There are but two of the graduates concerning whom the Secretary has never been able to get any information whatever. Stein has never been heard from except through rumors since graduation, and even rumors about him ceased twenty years ago. Every source of information has been exhausted and if his whereabouts are ever known to the Class, it will doubt- less be only by accident. The same is true of Holly. In the consulship of Frink Gates there was some news of him, but the present Secretary's records, dating back to 1893, are absolutely blank. These two men, Stein and Holly, are carried on the records as living members, although there is perhaps greater reason for assuming that they are dead.f There are some others who at times have disappeared from view, only to reappear after a lapse of time, expressing great astonish- ment that their failure to register a new address with the Secre- tary or the University should have resulted in failure to receive Class letters and reports. But there is now on record, and repro- duced in this book, information of comparatively recent date con- cerning every living graduate except the two mentioned above. The one hundred and twenty-one living members are scattered over the United States and a few foreign countries, almost pre- cisely as they were five years ago. England, Germany and China each has one of our classmates for f Since the above was written Stein's address has been secured and infor- mation concerning him may be found in the biographical section of this book. TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AFTER 13 a permanent resident. W. R. H. Trowbridge has lived in London for a considerable number of years, has abandoned his American citizenship and become a British subject. His literary work, well known in England, is much less known in America, but its character and quantity may be judged from information to be found else- where. Gardiner, while perhaps nominally an American citizen, is more frequently to be found in London than in New York. Bissell has been for some years in Munich, where he is the head of a school for American boys. It is quite certain that with his expatriation he is still as much of an American as most of us. The outbreak of the European war (August, 1914) brought to him a new line of activity, as he appears to be performing arduous and valuable work on the American Relief Committee in Munich and is business manager of the small daily publication called American Notes in Munich, printed for the information of Americans in that city in time of war. His school work goes on notwithstanding the war and his other activities. Bliss, we all know, has given his life to the mission field, and has been in China practicing his profession of medicine in con- nection with the mission work since 1892. The rest of us are resident in sixteen states of the Union, the distribution being almost precisely as it has been for fifteen or twenty years. Men of fifty (it may be unkind to refer to it, but the stubborn fact is that our average age passed from the forties into the fifties on September 10, 1914) do not change location frequently or without good reason; so the changes among us have not been many. Sanford Cobb, on account of his health, has abandoned the East and is living an outdoor life surrounded by his fruits, his flowers and his growing family, not far from Pasadena, in southern California. Cunningham, once of Norwich, Conn., and then for many years of New York (with London, Belfast and Glasgow on the side) is back at his profession "at the old stand" in Norwich. Arn, the elusive, at times the despair of the Secretary, is again, and appar- ently permanently this time, in Kansas City, Kans. Root's head- quarters have shifted from Providence to Boston. Penrose, like- wise at times elusive, is at St. David's, Pa. Eddie Burke's old 14 TWENTY-FIFE YEARS OF '87 familiar Genoese address has been exchanged for one having a street number in Omaha, where he can keep daily "tabs" on Vic Caldwell. Pomeroy is at Urbana, 111., at the University. It has been demonstrated that some of us are still of marriage- able age, by the fact that W. H. Ludington, Thacher and G. E. Hill have all married (and each for the first time) since the last report. Of the one hundred and twenty-one living graduates, twenty-three have not married. The children of the Class number now (September, 1914) two hundred and fifty-four, and their average age is not far from fifteen years. Among them the boys predominate in number by twenty-eight, there being one hundred and thirty-nine boys and one hundred and eleven girls. Of these children, eleven boys and six girls have died. The sex of six deceased children is not known. At least two of us have reached the grandfather class. This honor roll, which must grow from now on, is headed by Keeler, with Chase a close second. It is somewhat startling to those who have gone through the years without realizing how many of them have slipped by, to look over the list of the sons of '87 who have entered Yale. Eighteen have entered and five have graduated. Lee's son (who bears his mother's name, Jerome) was the first of these, graduating from Sheff in 1910, followed by Pettee's son, Allen, from Academic in 1911. John Hugus Caldwell (son of Vic Caldwell), 1912, and Albert Emmett Kent, 1913, followed; and every one who knows anything of Yale's recent football history, knows that Henry Holman Ketcham graduated in 1914, and was captain of the Eleven in his Senior year. In the Class of 1915 is Thomas Thacher Kent and among the ex-members of that Class appears the name of John Schade Norton. In 1916 are four whose names indicate to us their parentage: George Griswold Haven, 3d, Huntington Tomlinson Morse, Franklin Head Perkins, and Norman Penney among the ex-members. The 1917 roll discloses the following names : Victor Bush Caldwell, Jr., Wal- lace Graham Corwin, Frederick Brereton Diehl, William Kent and Charles Patterson Penney, while in '17 Sheff is Stuart Hill Caldwell (son of Ernest L.). Thomas Penney, Jr., is in the Class of 1918. The reasons why John Rogers' son has not entered Yale have TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AFTER 15 been made manifest to those who read his letter to the Alumni Weekly, on the defects in the Yale curriculum. The occupations of our men change even less than their resi- dences. The law occupies more than any other one profession or occupation and without actual comparison of figures it seems that a smaller proportion of us are occupying political or judicial positions of importance than is the case with many classes. The great body of the Class are filling their places in the world usefully, successfully, contentedly, but inconspicuously, save as many of them are conspicuous in their several communities. We have two congressmen who have stood the test of more than one election; a number of minor judgeships; from time to time a member appears on the roll of some state legislature, and one member, Anderson, has exercised very important functions in the Department of State at Washington, and since the outbreak of the European war, in connection with the American Embassy in London. Our members of college faculties are as they have been for some years, except for that increment of reputation and usefulness which comes with more mature experience: Phelps, Corwin and H. Ferris in Yale Academic, Sheff and the School of Medicine, respectively; Brownson, dean of the faculty of the College of the City of New York; Setchell, an authority of world-wide reputation in his line, at the University of California; Pomeroy, teaching law at the Uni- versity of Illinois at Urbana. Several of our medical men are connected with the faculties of medical schools in connection with their general professional duties. The extent to which '87 men have written for publication may be better gathered from the somewhat extensive bibliography which appears elsewhere in this book, than from any passing reference to such publications here. Reference should be made here to the fact that by the gift of a member of '87, two rooms in the new Wright Dormitory bear the names of deceased classmates one the name of Albert Gay Hunt and the other of the Curtis brothers. REMINISCENCES AND CHANGES 1883-871912-14 BY ROBERT N. CORWIN Haec jam meminisse juvat Our obdurate Secretary has asked me to record the changes which have taken place at Yale since that era of travail and triumph which reached its culmination in 1883-87. In a weak,, unguarded moment I consented, and contracted for the future delivery of the goods requested. Now I find that if our XXVennial Report is to see the light of day before our next reunion this obligation must be met. I wish that his Secretarial Nibs had assigned the task to one whose coign of observation were further removed from the scene of action, for introspection and self-examination may easily blunt the judgment as well as the pen, whereas many purveyors of news the Alumni Weekly, the Yale Review and alumni dinners have brought to your doors and your ears frequent and vivid reports and pictures of the doings at Yale. However, there is my promise, and I must, willy-nilly, have a go at it. I shall not attempt to make this record a learned treatise on educational creeds and practices, or college management and effi- ciency. The period to be recalled has been one of great educa- tional unrest and experimentation. It has witnessed some of the most radical and far-reaching movements of modern times. Even a short account of these and of Yale's relation to them might prove an interesting if not a valuable contribution to knowledge, but my tale must limit itself to a record of such matters only as concern the history or interest of the Class of '87. I will accord- ingly try to recall the changes of most interest and will take up matters in their natural order, that is, in the order in which they occur to me. The recording of the contrast between what was and what is will necessarily involve some reminiscences. Our first and liveliest interest is probably in the subsequent fate of the faculty of that critical period in history, 1883 to 1887. It is the personal element in our instruction which appeals to us 18 TWENTY-FIVE YEARS OF '87 first,, last and always. Our memories constantly recur to those men who with much wisdom and infinite patience guided our faltering footsteps along a path which was narrow, if not always straight. The lapse of time, however, though it be but a mere philosophical concept, has placed us in a peculiar dual relation to our late teachers. In our student days they were far removed from us both in age and in station; but more than three decades have been posted up in the books since we were first haled into their presence, and we are now almost contemporaries of the hardy survivors of that band. Our pictures of these men are therefore frequently out of drawing, no doubt, and our judgments filled with anachronisms which date from undergraduate days. Moreover, during the long period of our post-curriculum activities, ideals and methods of instruction have undergone much change, for better or for worse. Nothing is therefore further from the purpose of this sketch than to pass final judgment on the character or work of those men who bore with us for four long years. The Gentle Reader for whom this tale is told will also under- stand that the discarding of cumbersome collegiate titles is prompted by no disrespect. In our daily intercourse we used to use only the "given" name, and that will be used here. Of the men to whom the First Division recited and the Sixth reported "not prepared," there are "only a few more left" as active members of the faculty. Only Beers, Dana (Eddy), Beebe, Hadley and Reynolds have survived the importunities of the Carnegie Pension Fund and the rigors of their profession. Of Mr. Hadley, who led us through "Progress and Poverty," and who gave daily evidences of a mastery of his subject and a unique brilliancy in teaching it, it is unnecessary to speak, as his later career is a matter of public record. My only regret in connection with the course is that some of us learned so well the latter part of it. Ah, well ! even poverty has its lessons. In the old Progress and Poverty days, Mr. Hadley had but recently been made pro- fessor of political and social science. As tutor and instructor he had taught earlier classes German, Greek and logic, and could do so today if need be. Beers (it was Zwei in our day, but the amount has been cut down somewhat, I am informed) is one of the most productive of Yale's prolific English faculty, and writes verse or prose equally REMINISCENCES AND CHANGES 19 well. He has a knowledge of many languages and literatures and seems to possess some divining rod for detecting what is best in and among books. For students possessed of that rare passion, a thirst for knowledge, he has been and still is a real guide, philoso- pher and friend. If a lot of us had sensed the beams which were in our own eyes, rather than taken advantage of the mote in those of our instructor, and if we, in that old Lyceum lecture room, had not let Tuffy recite for Alec, or Doc Knight personate Sam, not so many of us would have to slyly consult a book of reference when our young sons ask us whether Chaucer wrote the "Merry Wives of Windsor" or the "Wife of Bath." Dana, the younger of the Danae, Eddy, to distinguish him from his learned father, is still as active as ever, and only those who have seen him in action or been in action under him will under- stand the full significance of that statement. He was the livest wire with which we had come in contact to date. The atmosphere of his classroom was surcharged with force. I doubt whether any class of our day had better instruction in physics. His statements and demonstrations were lucid and convincing. He always insisted upon clear thinking and concise presentation, but showed us also that a teacher may be most considerate and yet forceful. The discomfiture, which he visited upon those whose exposure to the lesson had not been sufficient to leave a clear picture, was accom- plished by methods as skillful as those of the great Greek, who has remained the prototype of all succeeding schoolmasters. Reynolds, for whom we also had an affectionate cognomen, still teaches that language which remains Greek to most of us. He still acts as sponsor for those who are willing to weep over those ancient comedies interspersed with Yale cheers which convulsed the ancient audiences of Attica. Time has not dimmed those qualities which endeared him to our Class. Of our mathematical triumvirate, Richards, Phillips and Beebe, Beeb is the sole active survivor. None of our preceptors made a cleaner cleavage than he between what one knew and what one did not know. Even an appearance of ignorance had to be avoided, and a gulf yawned before him who hesitated. With what dangers even the axioms of Euclid were beset in his classroom. His pons asinorum became a veritable Bridge of Sighs, and those who aspired to trigonometry were not spared the horrors which hunger imposed TWENTY-FIVE YEARS OF '81 on ^Eneas and his followers at their landing upon the inhospitable shores of Italy. Te fames accisis coget dapibus consumere mensas. We were forced to devour his tables, and the fact that they were logarithmic did not render them more palatable or more digestible. If the efficacy of a potion may be determined by the distaste of the patient, Beeb's Euclid is a universal panacea. Likewise, our aerial journeys in his astronomy class were beset with numerous engine troubles and not infrequently ended as did the flight of Phaeton of old. We wondered how he got his certificate as sky-pilot. Our faith in the words of the Psalmist, "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his handi- work," was sadly shaken, and even to the present day the Milky Way has no charms for many of our Class. Off and away from the Cathedra, Beeb's charm and wit are the envy of his colleagues. He is a most genial host, a true friend and a great doer of good works. Dicky Richards, the good friend of all athletes and of other mere men, and always the first to answer the S. O. S. call of a student in distress, retired from active service in 1906. His abrupt and almost gruff manner deceived no one as to the size of his heart or the alertness of his affections. He, together with Dean Wright, did most to lay the foundation for that better understand- ing and closer relation between teacher and pupil which exists pre- eminently here at Yale. His life of great service came to an end in 1913. I wonder how many of our Class could duplicate his feat, accomplished at about our age, of walking across the state of Connecticut between sunup and sundown. Andy Phillips was the only one of our teachers who got his edu- cation over in Sheff, and you can judge something of the kind of thing offered over there in this line by Andy's mastery of his sub- ject and his genial outlook on life. To him even algebra had its comic aspects. His enthusiastic good nature, his cheerfulness and fairness were unmatched, and he has made every '87 man his friend and debtor. His graphics, with its cabinet of marvelous toys, trained to do circles, parabolas, ellipses, or anything in the mathematical line, was a delight to pupil and teacher alike. At a later period, Andy was translated to the deanship of the Grad- REMINISCENCES AND CHANGES 21 uate School, and did much to make this a useful and respected member of our University circle. Beebe and Dicky insisted upon our climbing the tree of knowl- edge ourselves, not only unaided, but not infrequently embarrassed by remarks which seemed to us irrelevant. But Andy always insisted upon shaking down the fruit for us. If need be, he would climb the tree himself. Though not in the University, he is still of its circle, and is enjoying a life of leisure and usefulness. The few wanderlusty spirits who were venturesome enough to aspire to a still higher phase of mathematics, made the acquaintance of Professor Newton. His was a familiar figure on the Campus, and, together with the eccentric Loomis and the solitary Gibbs, was regarded with that distant awe felt, by those less favored, for mathematical genius. He died in 1896. His house on the corner of High and Elm is the busy home of the Yale Alumni Weekly and of that new and useful venture, the Yale University Press. All of our teachers except the quintet mentioned have sought other and different fields of conquest, or have rested from their labors here as members of the Order of Emeritus, or as members of that larger and more august body for which we are all preparing. Dear, saintly old President Porter died five years after our gradu- ation. In our day he was no longer in the vigor of youth or health, but all of our Class who came in contact with him will have the pleasantest recollections of his kindly face and words. My scrap- book still treasures several excuses signed by him without question or demur. President Dwight bears his fourscore and some odd years lightly and cheerfully. His usefulness did not come to an end at his retirement from the presidency in 1899. He has a very warm place in his heart for his first Class a feeling which I believe is more than reciprocated. I will take up the other men more or less as the}?- appear in the catalogue of our day; since I have consulted that work, this is the order in which they occur to me. Professor Dana, Rocksy for short, was one of the not very numerous body of really eminent scholars before whose desks we sat. To enumerate the great things he has done and written would exceed the bounds of this very elastic tale. Under him we got glimpses of some of the wonders of science at first-hand. Pritch can repeat whole chapters of it still. But we did not hear much TWENTY-FIVE YEARS OF '87 about a great law promulgated by Darwin and Wallace some quarter of a century before, a law whose chief evidences are said to be inscribed in the rocks. We were thus spared being con- fronted by the shades of our remote ancestors. He died, full of years and honors, in 1895, one of Yale's great men in science. Another of these giants was William Dwight Whitney. Most of his work, and all of his undergraduate work, was done over in darkest Sheff. Those few of us who were wise enough or lucky enough to elect his course in linguistics place great value upon his instruction. Numerous incumbents now occupy the settee vacated at his death in 1894. Dr. Sanford, who, up in stuffy old Linonia, taught us the impor- tance of fresh air, and scared some of us into observing some of the laws of health, died in 1896. Professor Robinson, who came over from the Law School to teach some of us the other kind of law, just common law, left Yale in 1896 to become a professor, and later the dean of the Depart- ment of Law, in the Catholic University of America, Washington, D. C., and died in 1912. None of us will soon forget the Websterian grandeur and stately Ciceronian periods with which Cyrus Northrop welcomed us on the steps of Alumni Hall, when Freshmen first we came to Yale. Later, in the classroom, he taught some of us how not to write English. Though somewhat startled by his grande maniere, we soon found that this could not entirely disguise marked ability, and that the bowels of mercy were not wanting. Most of you know that he left Yale at the end of our Freshman year to become president of the University of Minnesota. He has but recently retired from this position, which he honored and in which he gained deserved fame, in favor of another great Yale educator, Vincent, '85. You will also recall that, though his first name always appears in print as that of a great magnate of the East, his real cognomen was spelled and pronounced quite differently. Botany Eaton taught Setch and some others the language of flowers. He was the only one of our professors who was requisi- tioned from the Sheff faculty, and those of you who took this course can form some notion of the degree of kindness, urbanity and scholarship required for membership in the faculty to which he belonged. You may not have suspected, however, that he was an TWENTY-FIVE YEARS OF '87 international authority on ferns. Since his death in 1895, he is missed much, both as friend and as colleague. Professor Wheeler was a great teacher. We found him in his prime, and the lavishness with which he used language made even the awkward squad of the Sixth Division sit up and take a little educational nutriment. His battle pictures would put a cinemato- graph to shame. We didn't always agree with him that Napoleon could do no wrong, and England very little right; and we felt much sympathy for the Iron Duke after he had been reduced to scrap iron; but we recognized that Professor Wheeler understood putting flesh and blood into or onto the dry bones of history. Give me a partisan for my historian ! His retirement from active service two years ago terminated a long and valuable service. I think it doubtful whether many of you will recall Van Name, for he was the guardian of the Library. A rumor was current in our college days that Alec Coxe, during one of his brainstorms of scholastic ardor, seriously considered trying to make his acquaint- ance, with a view to taking just one book during his course, but the psychological opportunity was somehow lost, never to return. "Yarrow," for him, still remains unvisited. Mr. Van Name is, however, a most approachable man. He built up, during his incum- bency, with very limited resources, one of the best working libraries in the country. Just on the side, he was an authority on Japanese. He was succeeded in 1905 by a mere youngster from the Class of '86. Professor Dexter better known, perhaps, under his stage name, Deiknumi who as Secretary of the Corporation signed our diplomas, as he did those of some thirty classes (1869-1899), and whom those of the Class who visited the Library will associate with that institution, was professor of American history in our day. In fact, he was, and has remained, its embodiment. He has earned the gratitude of every alumnus by his untiring industry in making the Library available for use and in preparing for publication many annals of Yale. He has but recently retired from active duty as assistant librarian. It is believed of Mr. Dexter, as it was of his colleague in Brothers and Linonia, J. Sumner Smith (died, 1903), that, once seen, he never forgot face or name. A memory like that must at times be an uncanny incumbrance. I wonder that it does not induce insomnia or inebriety. REMINISCENCES AND CHANGES 25 One of the last three gentlemen mentioned was a skilled musi- cian. Each member of the Class is given three choices which? Professor Ladd suffered, no doubt,, from the fact that he was one of the last remaining prescribed professors. It was recog- nized that "in Adam's fall, we sinned all," and that we must be redeemed by fair means or by the study of philosophy and psy- chology. But the course seemed to many well adapted to make virtue odious and vice attractive and redemption at the price offered was rejected. The "thingness of things" and even the "thing in itself" did not touch our imagination or hold our attention. As a laboratory course in ethics, our philosophy-psychology course was a failure. With Professor Seymour whose capric brow gave us a handle to his name we learned how woes numberless befell an ancient race and city, because of the wrath of Peleus' son. We sulked with Achilles, debated with Agamemnon, fought and fell with Hector and wept for and with Andromache all because that swell Paris had selected as his affinity one who had previous domestic obliga- tions. After the sacred city had succumbed to the strategy of the wily Ulysses, we left the digamma-strewn battlefield before Ilium to follow the devious and erratic wanderings of this first globe- trotter. Thus we saw the cities of many men and learned their manners and endured great suffering on the deep. Digamma was a great and an inspiring teacher. If Homer nodded, it must have been when he wasn't looking. He did yeoman service for many years after we left college, and the University suffered a great loss in his death in 1907. Tarbell, who, I hope, lives in blissful ignorance of our affection- ate desk-name for him, was sometime instructor in Harvard, and was later taken to Chicago by President Harper, when he initiated his great enterprise. Though occasional alarm was felt in the Class lest in one of his facial contortions he should bite his ear, or that he should be unable to unravel the Gordian knot into which he was constantly twisting his supple legs, we admired the ability with which he handled his subject and the fairness with which he handled us. I think he was one of our best instructors, and has more than made good in his new field of service. Bridgman was another who exposed us to Greek. I am confident that every member of the Class can still repeat parts of Aristoph- TWENTY-FIVE YEARS OF '87 anes. Soon after our day he became professor of Greek at Miami University, and now fills the same chair at Lake Forest University. Ambrose Tighe, better known as Ambrosial Tiggy, was one of the real inspirations of our course. None of us will forget his "tracts," or our astonishment at a tutor's going so far outside the text-book to make his course interesting and instructive. Until he had expounded his tract on the subjunctive mood, many of us had supposed that this mood was a device concocted by the grammarians at the instigation of the Evil One, for ensnaring and annoying the poor benighted student who was trying to find some rhyme or reason in the dead languages. I have preserved the tracts and they are still well worth reading. Tiggy has deserted the class- room for the courtroom, and is now a distinguished member of the Minnesota Bar. Alfred L. Ripley, Rip by preference though as a member of the Corporation he might not stand for it now left the professor's career soon after our graduation and is now the head of one of the largest banking houses of Boston. I can think of no greater financial extremes than between his former and his present estate. Both nature and experience have fitted him to be what he is, one of Yale's wisest advisers. Marrion Wilcox flitted across our path in Sophomore year, leaving some facts about German and a faint memory behind. This lan- guage being a mere elective, and therefore somewhat outside the pale, was not taken very seriously either by teacher or pupil. Since leaving Yale at the end of our Junior year, he has spent much time in travel and study, and has written much, especially on Latin- American affairs. A. B. Nichols, who followed him in this work, impressed us as a more virile character and left a deeper impression. He was a master of his subject, and a good teacher. His taste for what was good in literature was keen, and he gave the Class some of it. After leaving Yale in 1887 he was sometime instructor at Harvard, and later became the head of the Department of German in Sim- mons College, Boston. We were all much saddened to hear of his death a short time ago. A career of great promise was interrupted in the death of Pro- fessor McLaughlin in 1893. Some of us had English composition with him in Sophomore year. Though he did not reach all of his REMINISCENCES AND CHANGES students, those few whom he did get hold of found great returns from their work with him. He attempted a most difficult feat to impart to his students a taste for good literature and in view of the difficulty of the task, the results were considerable. He should be given credit for a notable share in the Revival of Letters here at Yale. Death likewise terminated, at an early date, the careers of two of our Sophomore instructors, Ernest Whitney (died, 1893), with whom we studied English literature, and Lewis (died, 1887), with whom some of us worked over the Frogs and Clouds. Lewis gave evidence to those who knew him of brilliancy somewhat touched with eccentricity. Whitney impressed a larger number with his sterling qualities, though he was hampered by a wretched text-book. The order in which the faculty were to appear before us seems to have become somewhat disordered, but if one's memory will not follow the order of precedence as laid down in the catalogue, what can one do? William Graham Sumner had a large share in the making of the Yale man of today, and left a strong imprint on every man who came in contact with him. If there is such a sprite as the Yale Spirit, Billy Sumner furnished more of its ingredients than any other of our teachers. But it is needless to speak of him; we all have a vivid picture of him and shall not soon forget his manner of speech and mental attitude. There was no mere bandying of words or marking of time in his classroom. The student was con- fronted with certain plain facts and was made to eliminate all irrelevant matter and to draw the logical inferences, no matter whither such inferences led or whether they were agreeable or otherwise. Billy Sumner had little respect and no fear for majorities, whether within the faculty or without. In his search for truth he rushed in where others of his colleagues feared to tread, and his spirit of research and his fearlessness in facing results gained for him our respect and gratitude feelings which have grown with the years. Yale rarely departs from the rule of not granting honorary degrees to members of her own faculty, but she did herself honor in giving to Sumner the degree of LL.D. upon his retirement in 1909. He died in 1910. 28 TWENTY-FIVE YEARS OF '81 We did not realize how numerous and varied were Professor Sumner's writings. The Yale University Press is doing a great public service in bringing out some of his most timely essays. I should advise every '87 man to read that little gem of an auto- biography in his Earth Hunger collection of essays. Professor A. W. Wright, Buffalo to us, distinguished by his bison-like mane from a colleague whose locks were conspicuous by their absence, was in our heyday professor of molecular physics and chemistry. He presided with courteous and scholarly dignity over the then new but now old Sloane Laboratory. He was, in fact, the beau ideal of considerate urbanity. Yet, young reprobates that we were, hardened by seven years of toil in and about the Roman Forum or under the shadow of the Acropolis, and stuffed with unchristian morals and the prejudices of the ancient pagans, we were made well-nigh impervious to the introduction of that form of knowledge which he professed and practiced. We saw, with eyes that saw not, experiments performed with unmatched skill; and we heard, with ears that heard not, many marvels of science; but we did not understand its language. It was too remote from our previous training and experience. Laboratory instruction and practice have now rendered it unneces- sary to make such heavy drafts upon the credulity and imagination of the student. It was hard for us to become enthusiastic or excited over the statement that if a certain amount from Exhibit A (held up in plain sight) were applied to a certain amount from Exhibit B (likewise exposed to view), a certain accurately described third thing, usually designated a reaction or an explosion, would cer- tainly ensue. But Buffalo accomplished much, considering the material, both physical and mental, with which he had to deal. He retired from active service in 1906. The curtailment of his dis- tinguishing feature preceded by some years that of his activity. Speaking of beards turns my memory to Jay Seaver,* who initi- ated us into the mysterious uses and benefits of Indian clubs, parallel bars, flying rings and other instruments of bigotry and virtue at the Gym. This beard, which in the days of Edwin Lear would have inspired a rhyme, did not seem to interfere with gymnastic performances which were considered marvelous, nor did it quite conceal a personality which was always considerate and helpful. * Since the above was written, Dr. Seaver's death occurred, May 6, 1915. TWENTY-FIVE YEARS OF '87 Seaver was a strong and helpful influence in making the body sound and the mind sane. He was long actively employed in the enlarged gymnastic sphere of the new Gymnasium,, and is now a prosperous physician of Chautauqua, N. Y. At Chautauqua, he has probably done as much as any American to spread the gospel of health. In our day, Professor Knapp taught most of that numerous progeny of languages which claim relationship with Latin, in vary- ing degrees of consanguinity: French, Old French, Proven9al, Spanish and Italian. We always envied the members of his French classes their easily earned high grades. They were not put through any third degree inquisition, and their marks represented, it would seem, not so much any record of accomplishment as an ideal or complimentary grade. He joined the Harper exodus to Chicago in 1892, and died in Spain, I believe, in 1908. Bendelari, who assisted Professor Knapp in the management of his numerous brood of languages, left Yale for Harvard soon after our graduation. At last accounts he was editorial writer on one of the large New York dailies. I have spoken of some of the many who tried to make Latinists of us. Tracy Peck was always de jure a Roman, and he is now become one de facto. Upon his retirement in 1908, he hit one of the numerous trails for the Eternal City, and has since then made Rome his home. He is a willing, tireless and learned guide to acquaintances and friends making the Italian journey. He was a good teacher, and Pliny, with his interpretation, seemed almost modernly human. What muse of pedagogy ever prompted Baldy to elect to inter- pret that wily and licentious Horatius? One cannot imagine two natures less alike or more naturally unsympathetic than that of the author and the exegete. As well ask a Francis of Assisi to interpret a Byron or Walt Whitman. There was every evidence of scholarship in the instruction ; likewise the dean not infrequently broke through the old scholastic traditions with extra textual com- ment, which gave us some insight into his own quick sensibilities and deep feeling. But I fear that most of us finished the course with the notion that Horace was a kind of prototype of Isaac Watts and John Greenleaf Whittier. Most of the characteristics which have made him a poet for all time remained hidden under unbroken seals. TWENTY-FIVE YEARS OF '87 Though we liked Baldy as a teacher, it was as dean that he came into his own. His deanship began with our Sophomore year, and he retired to the sidelines twenty-five years later. No man could have preserved a juster balance between a sane head and a big heart, though the dictates of the one and the promptings of the other must often have been in opposite balances. He is now the unofficial college adviser, accessible at all times to both old and young. He is just now aiding and abetting in the establishment of that rival institution in New London, for the sex which we love in spite of its recent extravagances and vagaries, but do not admit to our own undergraduate privileges. Frank Abbott, another Latinist, had us in Tacitus. He was clear-headed and made the Germania interesting. President Harper tapped him first for Chicago, and for some time he was the whole faculty of the University of Chicago. He must look with much pride upon what has grown from this little grain of mustard seed. However, he accepted a call to the chair of Latin in Princeton University some years ago, and is now trying to bring some of the Princeton men up to the moral and intellectual standard of the average Yale man. He is a prolific writer in many learned subjects connected with the Latin tongue. Oscar H. Cooper, called Thanatos, to distinguish him from his colleague, Minnehaha, Laughing Waters, did not try to belittle to us the woes of this world or those of the language which he pro- fessed. Perhaps he saw in his running mate the dangers which may lurk in a smile. Tutor Cooper has not only successfully evaded his namesake, but has done much to educate that prodigious state of Texas. He was until recently president of Simmons College, Abilene, Texas, and stands high in the educational councils of the Southwest. Waters began his tutorial career with our admission to college and terminated it with our graduation, but he seems to have gotten on swimmingly without us. He, too, has been a college president, Wells College (no men admitted). At an earlier period he was a professor in the University of Cincinnati, and at a later period and until now professor of Greek in New York University. Both he and Cooper have had sons in college. Mark Bailey, the discoverer of Lincoln at least here in the East the teacher who planted the fertile seeds of eloquence in REMINISCENCES AND CHANGES 83 Jim Sheffield and some others, completed his fifty years of service at Yale in 1905. Since his death in 1911 we very much miss his picturesque figure and courtly greeting. The changes in the physical plant of the University are the most obvious and the best known, and therefore probably the least inter- esting, yet some of these represent changes of policy, as well as of size. To turn first to our ancestral home, the old Campus within its four streets were confined nearly all of the activities of our college life, but there are now not one but several campuses, though not given this name. The two squares directly north of the Campus are owned, or at least controlled, by the University. The square nearest the old Campus holds White, Berkeley, Haughton and Fayerweather Halls. These new and well-equipped dormitories house a very large proportion of the upperclassmen, and this has changed somewhat the center of gravity as we knew it. Fayer- weather Hall likewise contains the Yale Station post office, with a box corresponding to each college room, and the enormously enlarged and more active cooperative store, which had its small beginning in our time. These halls surround the Berkeley Oval, the upper end of which is filled by the Lampson Lyceum, containing numerous seminary rooms, and rooms for recitations and lectures. On the east, this square also holds the renovated and rechristened Divinity Halls, to which has just been added the beautiful Day Missions Library. With the square next beyond on the north, con- taining as it does, the administration hall and the Bicentennial buildings, you are all more or less familiar, both from picture and from story. These last adjoin the two squares occupied by the Sheffield buildings and activities. Beyond, at the head of what many think the most beautiful street in the world, Hillhouse Avenue, on the finest and one of the largest squares, now the property of the Uni- versity, are the beginnings of what promises to be one of the most stately groups of university laboratories in the country. Two magnificent structures are already completed: the new Sloane Laboratory, where all the physics, whether of the Academic or the Sheffield variety, is taught and studied; and the Osborn Memo- 34 TWENTY-FIFE YEARS OF '87 rial Laboratories, which last offer a home for most of the branches of study which go under the name of biology. Just beyond the Pierson-Sage Square, on the beautiful estate of the late Professor Marsh, of paleontological fame, is located the School of Forestry, one of the most active and useful additions to the faculties. The first chief of the United States Bureau was its co-founder. Its first dean became the second head of this great bureau. The School has had a large share in equipping both the national bureau and those of the states. But a glance at the map and plan that preface the University catalogue, which is one of the perquisites of every graduate, will be a much simpler and more convincing evidence of the present extent of Yale's material growth than the most explicit and accu- rate description. To presto-change our attention back to the Campus: Of the thirteen buildings on the Campus, only six the Art School, the old Library, Durfee and Farnam Halls, Battell Chapel and South Middle were completed before our admission to college. Since that day six new buildings have appeared and a still larger number have vanished. The only relic of the old Brick Row, which housed most of us at some time or other during our college course, is South Middle, rechristened Connecticut Hall. In this, now the hub of the College, are located the administration offices, where the Dean dispenses justice and the Registrar marks. The stones of Vander- bilt, Welch, Phelps, Wright and Osborn have no sermons for us, but it might be added that Osborn Hall has achieved the unique distinction of creating very widespread comment, none of it favorable. The old Library has suffered various accessions in various styles of architecture. It was found that there were certain archi- tectural styles still lacking on the Campus. This defect has now been remedied. An inference from this, however, that the Campus has lost beauty and charm would be wholly wrong. The Library is said to contain a million volumes, and there are a hundred thousand more books in the various departmental libraries; yet, not satisfied with this enormous accumulation, the librarians keep adding some twenty thousand a year to the collection. In our day the notion prevailed that the Library was a place for preserving books, but now this institution has become a very active agent in getting books REMINISCENCES AND CHANGES 35 WRIGHT HALL Erected in 1912 in Honor of Former Dean Wright and information into the hands of the faculty and heads of the students. Likewise Battell and the Art School have each grown a new wing. Across High Street from the old Library is Billy Kent's laboratory, where some of the most efficient work in the University is done. Sloane Physics Laboratory, which in our day was the latest word in laboratories and in which we recited to Buffalo Wright between snowballs, has been degraded to the level of a mere office building. The old Gym, vividly remembered for its "two and seventy stenches," has been completely disguised, and is now addressed under the name of Herrick Hall. It has worked up into the position of Laboratory of Psychological Research. Dwight Hall had hardly got under good headway in our time. 36 TWENTY-FIVE YEARS OF '87 It is now the center of the religious work not only of the Campus,, but of the University as a whole, and has its counterpart for the Sheffield Scientific School in Byers Memorial Hall. Each of these has an excellent library, reading-rooms, grill rooms, and rooms for billiards, pool and lounging. The amount and variety of work done by the Y. M. C. A. is enormous. One of its most important functions is to take the Freshmen in hand as soon as the June examinations for admission are completed, and to start them properly upon their university careers. Its most unique achieve- ment is the establishment and support of that distant outpost in China, which bears the same name as the Alma Mater. Wright Hall, the monument to the friend of every Yale man of the last three decades, has superseded old Alumni Hall, the Waterloo of so many young hopefuls. This hall is now the home of the Freshman class, and just now has several sons of '87 as tenants. It, like most of the other halls, both old and new, has real private baths and other things to match. Isn't that modern decadence with a vengeance? Eighty-seven can remember a time when cleanliness, however close to godliness, was made a rather inaccessible elective. The humiliation of a bath in the old Gym, or in West Divinity, was no doubt good for our hard hearts. Peabody Museum still remains in its pristine ugliness, but it shelters many unique and invaluable collections, gathered by that Nimrod of science, Professor Marsh, the friend of Colonel Cody and Sitting Bull. He could have given A. Coxe pointers on horses. His record covers many centuries, if not millenniums, and in his collection are those having anywhere from one to five toes, while I doubt whether Alec can show any with more than one. These and other changes in the physical geography and indus- trial centers of the University have involved some changes in the workaday life of the undergraduate. All Freshmen now room in Wright Hall or close at hand in the college dormitories on York Street. The Sophomore Gold Coast, which arose shortly after our day, is no more, so that practically all students are housed on the old Campus or one of the new ones. In spite of the fact that the old Campus and the new ones have been much beautified with grass and shrubs and walks, much greater REMINISCENCES AND CHANGES 37 liberty is allowed in the matter of ball, both base- and foot-. This relaxation in the rules has only been possible since our Dead Game Shots from California now come to us somewhat better tamed and broken. In some respects college life would have no further charm for some chosen few of us. Gamma Nu and the Sophomore societies have gone the way of the Brothers and Linonia, without leaving any such useful memorials. This, together with the establishment of three new Junior societies, has involved some revision of the elections and practices of these societies. The Elihu Club, founded in 1903, forms a valuable addition to the Senior group. Another striking addition to the society life of the undergraduate, of Sheff as well as Yale College, is the Elizabethan Club, made possible through the generosity of a graduate of the Class of 1896. The club was founded by men interested in good literature, for the encouragement of the taste for it and the desire to produce it. Billy Phelps is largely responsible for giving the club its aim and character and success. Speaking of things convivial and stimulating, I had almost for- gotten Mory's. My memory evidently has little respect for the unities of time, place and action. I trust that no critical class- mate will try to discover the plot of this tailless tale. To have overlooked this extra-mural shrine might have seemed criminal to some devoted members of the Class. This Mecca is no more mores, tempora. I know that it has passed away, for its obituary has been written by a son of Yale. There is said to be a new Mory's as if such a thing were possible. This is not the age of miracles. I have not tried its cakes and ale. Morning chapel has withstood the tooth of time, and the tongue of criticism. There is, however, now no chapel-going bell to toll in the last sketchily clad stragglers. Its silent tongue is enshrined, so rumor has it, in one of the institutions which are peculiar to Yale's undergraduate life. Dr. Barbour, who for four years preached to us a gospel which would have delighted the soul of Calvin himself, and who for the same number of years tried each morning to prepare us for the stern duties of the day, ended his cure of souls for Yale at our graduation. He became principal of the Congregational College' of British North America, Montreal, Canada, and died in 1899. 38 TWENTY-FIVE YEARS OF '87 Speaking of Dr. Barbour reminds me of Dr. Stoeckel, organist and choir leader, who for some thirty-five years added to the morn- ing chapel service such charms as music has. He died in 1907 after long retirement from active service. This brings to mind the Music School, which now occupies President Dwight's former home, and is one of the most active departments of the University. The work of Professor Parker and his associates has made the School widely known and is making New Haven a musical center of no mean proportion. Morning chapel is now conducted by members of the faculty, and the pulpit is filled on Sunday by preachers selected impartially from our numerous sects, for their ability to touch and warm the under- graduate heart and conscience. Sunday service is frequently held in Woolsey Hall, one of the stately architectural additions which commemorate the completion of Yale's second century of ser- vice. The transfer of the services to this magnificent hall every fourth or fifth Sunday enables the Sheff men, as well as those of other departments, to avail themselves of the benefits of clergy, This mention of Woolsey Hall calls to mind what is perhaps the greatest change in the ceremonial of college life. The change referred to appears in the conferring of degrees at Commence- ment. In our day of simple things, those who had held the lead for four years were rewarded by being forced to appear in public on the stage at graduation. Words of wisdom based upon four years of study were showered upon classmates of lower estate, and the rest of mankind. This has now been changed beyond all recognition of its former semblance. The scene has been shifted from Center Church, and the candidates from Yale College gather with those of all other departments of the University in Woolsey Hall. The wings of graduating and graduated oratory have been clipped, and the exer- cises have become a pageant of splendor and parade, as you who have witnessed it can testify. Geronimo and his band in all their glory and plumage could not hold a feather to us arrayed in our many colored toga scholastica. The chief feature of the Com- mencement exercises as at present practiced is the conferring of degrees, honoris causa, upon men of distinction. It is a dignified and impressive ceremony. But most of you have seen this spectacle and I am wasting my words. REMINISCENCES AND CHANGES 39 COMMENCEMENT PROCESSION A great addition to the comfort and convenience of undergrad- uate life., since it concerns their very meat and drink, has come about through the establishment of Commons. The great Yale Dining Hall, one of the sights of the University, is familiar to most of you from attendance at alumni dinners. This has all the appoint- ments of a well-managed hotel and a seating capacity of 1200. The food is abundant, its quality excellent, the service good and the price reasonable, inasmuch as no attempt is made to run the establishment at a profit. At rush seasons, as on the days of the 40 TWENTY-FIFE YEARS OF '87 big games or at Prom time,, ladies are admitted to the privileges of the hall. It should be added that there are grill rooms in Dwight and Byers Memorial Halls. Another addition to the means for increasing the bodily com- fort of the student body is the Infirmary, built in 1892. This accession to Yale's equipment can be appreciated by those who,, during their college course, were visited by any human ill suffi- cient to keep them to their rooms. The college room did not make a good sick-bay; much sympathy could not make up for good nursing, and the cold and broken meats, transported from some distant eating joint by the kindness of roommate or sweep, were rarely palatable. All this is now remedied, and a student who falls ill is given all the care and comfort which would be given to any other individual so circumstanced. The Infirmary has the appoint- ments of a well-equipped hospital or sanitarium, and its location on Prospect Hill, opposite Sachem's Wood, is beautiful and salubrious. At times it has been so popular a health resort that sick excuses have had to be viseed with some care. It must be a great shock to the old Law of the Survival of the Fittest, to see all those hard- ening processes, both mental and physical, of our day, eliminated from the educational system. Greater care is given to the well, as well as to the sick. The gymnasium of our antediluvian age was the last resort of feeble bodies. Its apparatus, limited in amount and primitive in char- acter, was in wonderful contrast to the embarrassment of riches housed in the new Gymnasium. This building, which owes its being to Dicky Richards' persistent appeals to the generous impulses of graduates, is the athletic center and clearing-house. Here is housed every apparatus and device known to science for developing and strengthening the whole body or any fraction thereof. All is under the supervision of a trained physician. Better notions of the relation of exercise, hygiene and food to health have arisen, and the harmfulness of the neglect or abuse of nature's laws is better understood. The thousand odd lockers attest the numbers who avail themselves of the gymnastic privileges. The Gymnasium is a great factor in Yale life, and the recent addi- tions, the Carnegie Swimming Pool, and to a lesser extent, the indoor baseball cage, have still further increased its usefulness. While speaking of things athletic, the tennis courts on the Pierson- REMINISCENCES AND CHANGES HAMILTON PARK GATE Sage Square (alias Sachem's Wood), the baseball cage, the Adee Boathouse, and the new athletic Field, with its Bowl, are quite beyond the dreams of the avarice of our day. To be appreciated, they must be seen. Sport, which in our day was tolerated as an inevitable interfer- ence with more serious work, has come to be recognized as an important feature of college experience. Many of the faculty are good fans. It is recognized that sport not only develops the body, but that it makes for self-control and morality. The athletic interests have been given an official status by the election of the official adviser at present the chairman of the University Ath- letic Association to membership in the faculty and the Univer- sity Council. Yale has been consistent and wise, however, in leaving all athletic control possible in the hands of the undergrad- uates and the advisers chosen by them. As a quid pro quo the faculty has insisted that all participants and representatives in 42 TWENTY-FIVE YEARS OF '87 athletic contests should have their scholastic affairs in good order, and athlete is accordingly synonymous with good student. Though the four major sports still hold first place, several new forms of athletic activity and organization unknown to us have arisen, notably basket ball, soccer, water polo, hockey and golf. There is accordingly a much larger number of men engaged in sports. This has necessitated the adoption of more rigid regula- tions concerning the participation, more especially in intercollegiate contests. Another marked difference in matters athletic would be noted by a returning Rip Van Winkle of '87. It would seem to him a long time between victories. The triumphal snake-dance and bonfire have long been strangers to the Campus. In the days of Noah, contest and victory were almost synonymous This day, the noise of battle, The next, the victor's song. There is, however, throughout the College, a good, healthy, sports- manlike spirit. Unfair recruiting and unsportsmanlike tactics are discountenanced. Though Yale has accumulated fewer cups and banners of late than she used to in the good old days, there are no doubt some contributing causes which at first escape notice. Yale has taught the lessons of football, baseball and rowing to most of the colleges of the East, and some of her pupils seem to have learned their lessons almost too well. The very increase in the number of students has made the athletic problem more difficult. This has increased the difficulty of selection and of training more than at first appears. It seems also to some that the push of old days has been sacrificed too much to the study of tactics and of strategy. Yale seems, however, to be working through these problems, and it is believed that the consolidation of the University Spirit, and a more forceful leadership will at no very distant day end our era of apology. \ Speaking of things athletic, it so chances as I write this that the Junior Promenade is on. This ought to show much change, and it does. The stately function which we knew has developed $ This article was prepared some months before the author was made chairman of the Yale University Athletic Association. [En.] REMINISCENCES AND CHANGES certain highpowered qualities. Dawn teas and receptions and other side-shows have sprung up around the big tent; but in spite of all these things, the chief feature of the Prom, the Prom Girl, seems to have remained unchanged. Neither the infinite eccentrici- ties of the dance, nor the extreme diaphaneity of the dress can hide the fact that these are the same girls that wore our little knots of blue and did not reject other little tokens of our respect and esteem, as their mothers might testify if they would. Perhaps the most striking addition to the extra-curriculum activi- ties is the establishment of the Dramatic Association. Some of you have seen at our recent reunions what these young men can do in the way of presenting even the more difficult plays of Shakes- peare. Here again, Billy Phelps is the man behind the scenes. An innovation which would strike an '87 visitor as startling is the Campus Patrol. In our day the Campus was our castle, and a copper entered it at his peril, but Jim Donnelly and his walking mate, Weiser, have long been some of the most necessary collegiate functionaries, as necessary as was the Hotchkiss of our day. A proposal to disband and discharge this police force would create a student riot. An interesting addition to the means of student control, which would seem amazing to our antiquated notions, is the Student Coun- cil. This is a body of representatives, elected by the students, more especially to act as an intermediary between students and faculty. The councils of both the undergraduate bodies have been most helpful in establishing wholesome and manly relations between the body which they represent and the faculty. Much has been accomplished toward abolishing the dual code of honor which formerly obtained in the matter of cribbing. There are many matters for which they have assumed the full responsibility. It is believed that this germ of self-government may develop still further. Likewise, the '87 man seeing the Campus lighted by electricity would probably recall the blight which befell the first electric pole which dared shed its ghastly light upon our Fence. Many poles went the way of the historic cherry tree before we were left in our chosen darkness. That ancient seat of learning, the Fence, as you all know, has given way to that monster of hideous mien, Osborn Hall. There is, inside the Campus, a fence which fences 44 TWENTY-FIFE YEARS OF '87 nothing,, and a fence oration embodying the same time-honored and shopworn jokes, but neither students, nor custom and tradi- tion, find any real abiding perch upon it. It is no longer the forum or the corner grocery of the Campus. Dear old Whitchkiss, pleasant or cross to friend or foe alike, entirely according to the stand of the barometer or the foot he had first put out of bed, we should sadly miss. When he found that a court purveyor of barrels and other combustibles for victorious bonfires seemed no longer a necessary functionary at Yale, he felt that this world no longer had need of him. He died in 1911, proud of the fact that he had never seen the Yale Boathouse nor visited the Yale Field. As to the more essential educational features of undergraduate life, it must be confessed that the life of the undergraduate today has become fuller and more complicated than was the case in our day. New forms of extra-curriculum activities develop every day. Though Yale has been consistently conservative in her attitude toward the adoption of what is new, many kinds of instruction unknown to us are now offered freely to the student. The tendency in education has been to make the pupil the archi- tect of his own development, and this tendency has been allowed to some extent here at Yale. Much greater freedom is now allowed to the student in the election of studies. This election may even begin in the preparatory school. Though Latin still holds its place as a rigid entrance requirement, Greek has given way and sunk to an elective of equal rank with modern languages, advanced mathematics and science. From the beginning of the college course the range of choice increases, the student being saved from scat- tering his energies too widely by a system of prerequisites which confines the choice to rather rigid groups. Several elements quite outside the curriculum have tended to change the undergraduate life. The size of the class has made it hard to develop the solidarity of earlier and smaller classes. Moreover, the introduction of elective courses and subjects has largely eliminated the invaluable incentive of competition, though giving a wider field for the display of marked ability. The com- parison of grades gained by one in the English drama with those REMINISCENCES AND CHANGES 45 won by another in chemistry gives little basis for estimating the relative industry or intellectual capacity of the two students. Moreover, the change in home life has had its influence upon the student. The professor is now no longer the repository of all knowledge. He is a specialist whose knowledge in certain fields is quite likely to be more limited than that of his pupil. The stu- dent may know more of the mechanics of the automobile and aeroplane than his teacher, may be more conversant with business efficiency and with financial questions, and may have had more advantages of foreign travel. Or he may, from Sunday supple- ments and other purveyors of cheap and incorrect information, which frequently pass for liberal education, have filled his sys- tem with an antitoxin which resists most of the efforts of the college instructor. These influences have shifted somewhat the point of view of the student, and his attitude toward his college education. They have also increased the problems of the instructor and of the faculty as a whole. Every faculty of the present day is struggling to find some guiding hand or guiding principle in this age of educational anarchism. Just now the cry is that education must be made practical, whatever that means, and the practical man has been given the helm in most of the secondary schools, not always, it is feared, to the benefit of the victims who have submitted themselves to the process which is called education. I 'H.D. That & work >fce rest ing marked: bo th< les COI rec in H, an the Gr in) Be lid S*: : L no HTA3Q 3Hrp 10889*011 10 ,Siei i- who wa- consistent dunce in mathematics than I. My stupidity in thi^ field of human learning is something to be relied on, lik* n of Gibraltar. It has successfully withsto THE DEATH on January 20, 1915, of Professor Andrew Wheeler Phillips, than whom no member of the faculty came closer in touch with '87 or left upon the Class a more in- delible mark, inspired the Secre- tary to require Billy P helps to furnish for this book not only the sketch of Professor Phillips which follows, but also the portrait, which, taken from the walls of Billy's library, is of amateur origin and has not before been published. ANDREW WHEELER PHILLIPS, PH.D. BY WILLIAM LYON PHELPS That fine old Elizabethan, Thomas Heywood, in his interesting work, "The Hierarchic of the Blessed Angels/' remarked: I for my part (Think others what they please) accept that heart Which courts my loue in most familiar phrase; And that it takes not from my paines or praise, If any one to me so bluntly com, I hold he loues me best who calls me Tom. The president, the corporation, the faculty, the alumni, the under- graduates generally spoke of the dean of the Graduate School as Andy: it was a title of distinction, bred of affection, and seasoned with years. No one has ever known a man who resembled Andy Phillips ; and we shall not see his like again. Although Jewett City held the first place in his heart, he was born at Griswold, Conn., very near the Ides of March, 1844, on the fourteenth of the month, to be specific. He learned his first lessons at a red brick schoolhouse, where he outshone not only his comrades, but the teacher, in the science of mathematics. He received the degree of Ph.B. at Yale in 1873, an M.A. at Trinity in 1875, and a Ph.D. for brilliant graduate work at Yale in 1877. He was successively and successfully tutor, assistant professor and professor of mathematics at Yale, beginning his instruction in the year of his doctorate: in 1895 he was appointed dean of the Graduate School. His publications were numerous, useful and important : the one best remembered by the Yale alumni is probably "Graphic Algebra," which he wrote in collaboration with Professor Beebe in 1882. I have never met a person of any age or sex who was a more consistent dunce in mathematics than I. My stupidity in this great field of human learning is something to be relied on, like the Rock of Gibraltar. It has successfully withstood the valiant attacks 48 TWENTY-FIFE YEARS OF '81 made on it by all kinds of school and college teachers, ranging from those who have made long and patient siege, to those who have assaulted it with the bludgeon of fear, and the swift arrows of sarcasm. I went to school at the age of three, and studied mathe- matics continuously until the end of my Junior year in college; and with the exception of a rudimentary knowledge of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and short division, I know no more now than when I began. To this day I do not know whether the G. C. D. is the Greatest Common Divisor or the Grand Central Depot. And if by an unlucky chance it should mean the former, I do not know what the former means. I well remember a written examination in mathematics I took at school, when I was twelve years old. The perfect mark was ten. My mark on that examination was four-tenths of one, a liberal estimate of my actual knowledge by a female teacher. I have forgotten everything on the paper except the mark, which my classmates took pains to inform me was very low. When I was in college, I hated Chauvenet's Geometry with such murderous intensity that I looked him up in an encyclopaedia to see if he were still living and when I found that he was no more, I wrote on the title-page of his book, "Thank God he's dead!" I wished his works had followed him. I approach the subject of my sketch, therefore, from the unprejudiced standpoint of an invincible ignorance of his scientific speciality. But although mathematics is not a human subject, Professor Phillips was a human object. Mathematics is a science: teaching is an art: Professor Phillips was an artist. He was always a great teacher, and I never saw anyone teach with more zest, or get more fun out of his work than he. He loved his subject, he loved his pupils, and he loved his job: three conditions requisite to success. Never shall I forget the delight with which he used to exhibit mathematical models to the class ; to him they were as beautiful as an iridescent dream, to me as inexplicable. Graphic Algebra which seemed to me a combi- nation of Algebra and Geometry in their most malignant form became for the moment in his hands a thing of radiant beauty. He approached the subject, now with reverence, now with uncon- cealable affection. Some of the curves he put on the board had the restrained beauty of classicism: others took on the hues of ANDREW WHEELER PHILLIPS, PH.D. 49 the wildest romanticism. Graphic Algebra became a poem, nay, a religion. I remember as we entered the classroom one glorious spring day, Professor Phillips began the exercise by saying, "What curve can we find to fit the splendor of this beautiful May morning?" He found one! Humor was a salient feature of his personality : never a recitation without some humorous incident. He enjoyed excellent recitations, and he enjoyed execrable ones. He had a certain alchemy which enabled him to extract humor out of the most unpromising situa- tions. But although full of the sense of fun, there was no better disciplinarian on the faculty than he. The most rigid discipline prevailed in his classroom, and no student ever tried to be fresh or to take the subject other than seriously. Once after a beautiful and triumphant demonstration of some particularly complicated proposition that came out just exactly right, a few members of the class started to applaud: the sudden and severe reprimand they got from the chair made any future attempt of the kind not only impossible, but unthinkable. Professor Phillips proved that just as absolute discipline can be maintained by humorous kindness as by a grim-visaged front, or by the imposition of penalties. And as one who recited to him for three consecutive years, I can bear witness to the fact that his pupils had to work. His invariable formula, "Work out, plot, and bring into the class" meant hours of toil. It was impossible to substitute guessing for labor. I learned a great deal about human nature from this kindly and admirable teacher: what I got out of his courses was the tonic resulting from the absolute necessity of working hard and con- tinuously for three years at a job I detested every moment. Professor Phillips seemed to know each student intimately: he knew his characteristics, and the personal treatment of each man varied with the man's needs. In his innumerable private conversa- tions with individuals, he adapted his method with consummate wisdom. He always had a wholesome hatred of hypocrisy, bunkum, pretence, big talk, bluff, whether exhibited by men prominent in public life or by undergraduates; and he cured a number of the latter of this evil without losing their friendship. One student's examination was so fine he simply had to mark it four; but in this instance he thought it would not be the best thing for that par- ticular student to tell him his mark. Soon he received a note 60 TWENTY-FIVE YEARS OF '87 requesting it, and Professor Phillips replied, with an air of condolence, "I want to tell you that I marked you just as high as I possibly could." Professor Phillips rendered great services to the cause of second- ary education by serving on the board of trustees of the Cheshire, Hopkins Grammar and Hotchkiss schools, particularly as president of the Board of Trustees of Hotchkiss. Only the men intimately associated with the management of these schools know how untiring, how devoted, how unselfish, and how valuable his services were. He simply gave himself unsparingly, and it is pleasant to remember that his work with the Hotchkiss School has been made a matter of permanent record by a large oil painting at the institution, which, by the way, is a remarkably lifelike portrait. Unselfish and reserveless devotion characterized all his work for Yale, as teacher, as head of the mathematical department, as financial agent for the Bicentennial Fund, and as dean of the Graduate School. We may have differed with him occasionally as to his judgments on individual members of his department; but we all agree that everything he did, he did with an eye single to that department's service. At one time in his career, a large number of students wished to take a course in bookkeeping under his instruction, and apart from the curriculum; he taught them faithfully for a number of weeks, and when they offered to pay for the instruction, he refused to take a cent for himself, but had them pay for a set of models for the mathematical department. It is probably not generally known that out of his earnings as writer and teacher he made many gifts of money to the University, money that he could ill spare. As financial agent for the Bicen- tennial Fund, he traveled all over the United States on the most disagreeable of errands, and at a time when his health was exceedingly poor. This work lasted many months, and made a tremendous strain on his physical endurance. A man is known by his friendships. His most intimate friend on the faculty was Dean Wright, and he stood closer to President Dwight than any other professor in the institution. To receive the absolute confidence of men like President Dwight arid Dean Wright is in itself a high tribute. The president and these two deans made a great isosceles triangle; and the success of President ANDREW WHEELER PHILLIPS, PH.D. 51 Dwight's administration certainly owed something to this basic support. As dean of the Graduate School, Professor Phillips came into his own. His genius for organization was immediately apparent. The school grew in numbers with extraordinary rapidity, and is today one of the greatest graduate schools in the United States. This result has been achieved largely by the unremitting patience, industry and wisdom of its dean. He seldom took a vacation, and worked steadily all through the summer months, except when the condition of his health, never robust, absolutely required him to rest. Then he paid for extra help out of his own pocket. No one except those close to him have any idea of the man's capacity for personal sacrifice in the later years as dean. As a class, graduate students are desperately poor in cash; most of them come hither with no means of support, and many of them in indifferent health. To all of these God's poor the dean was a veritable father confessor; he spent hundreds of hours listening to their complicated tales of woe, encouraging them to go ahead, and keeping their faith from utterly failing. The number of intimate confidences he received would make a most human docu- ment, if it could be recorded. It is pleasant to remember that these students have not been ungrateful. Many a successful college professor today in the far West and in the South, men who are immensely loyal to Yale, and send many students hither, take delight in testifying to the fact that they owe their whole career to the sympathetic encouragement of Dean Phillips, given at a time when they stood in a crisis. In my various travels about the country to alumni associations, our men who hold graduate degrees from Yale always sent affectionate messages home to the old dean. I wish his correspondence could be published. As a member of the undergraduate faculty, Professor Phillips was always on the side of mercy. He may have often shown more mercy than justice, but surely that is not an unamiable trait. He has possibly saved some men not worth saving; on the other hand, a surprisingly large number of Yale's alumni who are now useful and influential citizens, and whose support Yale constantly depends on, owe their B.A. degree directly to his personal efforts, and they are keenly aware of the fact. For Professor Phillips never gave up faith in humanity. His TWENTY-FIVE YEARS OF '87 cheerful optimism was something indomitable, something that intense personal sorrow and bereavement, sad loneliness, chroni- cally bad health, acute attacks of extreme physical anguish, and lack of appreciation, could never even for a moment beat. I have seen him in action in the classroom; I have seen him in his dean's sanctum; in faculty meetings; in the old homestead in his beloved Jewett City; and more than a score of times I have seen him sick in bed, and utterly unable to rise; but I never saw him petulant, disconsolate, or afraid: he was always cheerful, always had time to read one of his humorous poems, or to tell a good story, or to explain some new mathematical device or demonstration. The influence of such a man is permanent. THE QUARTER-CENTURY REUNION THE STORY OF THE REUNION ALUMNI WEEKLY ACCOUNT THE CLASS REGISTER SHEFFIELD'S SPEECH AT ALUMNI MEETING o> a/ O o> Q/ oj cu o &, c 3 E ^aUJ "b* "^ "^ "^ "b*" "b^ "t^ "^ History will record (C tdg,New Haven for the re jresentatives from w@ich our mek live; that residineESin them, an _ non-graduate membd^) \s* t-r o /o 00^1 o/ ru ., v>". ttieft^*e> t 'WW 5 t@f the - ^specially urged as a reunion of th , California should, per gqgt of war, bear the jjomaine, Thacher and with sev honorable n of tht the N UNI O /t) 00 ^1 O/ OJ -tr t? CV> Cn (V) CV> (V) O7 fS of '8? 1912. of the Union in nted bv a . S- having - _g- ' o- THE STORY OF THE REUNION History will record that among the graduates of '87 who came to New Haven for the reunion, June 15 to 21, 1912, there were representatives from twelve of the sixteen states of the Union in which our men live; that six states were represented by every '87 man residing in them, and that only one state having more than one man was unrepresented. In the aggregate, there were seventy-three men who appeared at Class headquarters, 255 Crown Street, of whom only two were non-graduate members of the Class. It was a source of regret that so few of the non-graduate members came, it having been especially urged upon them that it was quite as much their reunion as a reunion of those whose diplomas bear the date 1887. California should, perhaps, by reason of its distance from the seat of war, bear the palm for attendance, for Kent, Sam Knight, Romaine, Thacher and Sanford were all early on hand; but Connecticut, with seventeen men present and only two absent, should be in the honorable mention list. The thoughtlessness of the Republican National Committee in fixing the date of the National Convention upon the same day as 56 THE QUARTER-CENTURY REUNION the Commencement ball game, deprived us of Copley and took Kent off to Chicago on Monday. Such interference with our plans was the more inexcusable, since our reunion date was fixed long before that of the Convention. If evidence of its unwisdom were needed, sufficient proof was furnished on November 5. The influx of men of '87 to New Haven commenced before the headquarters were opened, and when the committee arrived to officially throw open the doors of 255 Crown Street, on Saturday morning, they found a small knot of '87 men waiting in the attitude suggestive of the early risers awaiting the opening of the gates for the first game of a world's series; and after the final meal had been served, the bunting on headquarters torn down and the lights put out, a few were still about, not quite certain whether "the last gun had been fired" or not and fully determined to hear it go off if it hadn't. Eighty-seven had never before known a real reunion with all Standing: Rogers, Leeds, Dann Seated: Clarke, Corwin, Douglass, Playford, G. E. Hill, Brownson THE STORY OF THE REUNION 57 GATES, DOUGLASS, KETCHAM, CORWIN "the fixins." We had met, and enjoyed it, too, and had gone away, with renewed enthusiasm; but this time it was on an entirely different plan. The plans made by the committee gave us possession of the old Thacher house, 255 Crown Street, within which was a large dining- room where all meals were served and all comers ate together ; a lounging- and writing-room, the walls of which had been decorated with resurrected photographs of '87 in college days and teams and crews of twenty-five years ago; while just outside, a huge tent, covering the entire back yard, and supplied with chairs, tables and hammocks, afforded the favorite lounging place throughout the week. The two houses adjoining and one directly opposite were ours for the time being for sleeping quarters, and just around the corner at the "Taft" were reserved sufficient rooms for the families of men desiring them. While, of course, many events took us daily away from head- quarters, the great joy of it all and that which will linger longest 58 THE QUARTER-CENTURY REUNION in the memory of each man is not ball game nor Class dinner, nor function of any sort, but the quiet gatherings under the tent or the more noisy assemblages around the tables of the headquarters dining-room. We were again an '87 Eating Club, with all the close companionship which that implies to those men who ate in clubs before the days of the modern Commons. From Saturday morning until Tuesday, the arrivals continued, and high-water mark in attendance was reached at the Class dinner of Tuesday evening, when seventy-two men sat around the tables at the Lawn Club. Those whose names are entitled to appear upon the roll of honor, as being present at some time during the reunion, are the following: Charles Adams, New York; James Archbald, Pottsville, Pa.; W. M. Babcock, Minneapolis; T. L. Bayne, Manchester, N. C.; G. H. Beard, Bridgeport, Conn.; L. S. Bigelow, North Andover, Mass.; A. W. Brady, Anderson, 111.; C. L. Brownson, New York; E. L. Burke, Genoa, Nebr.; W. S. Burns, Bath, N. Y.; V. B. Caldwell, Omaha; W. B. Chambers, New York; F. S. Chase, Waterbury, Conn.; F. C. Clarke, New York; Alfred Coit, New London, Conn.; R. N. Corwin, New Haven; A. B. Coxe, Paoli, Pa.; John Cullinan, Jr., Bridgeport, Conn.; H. A. Dann, Buffalo; J. C. Diehl, Erie, Pa.; W. R. Douglass, Kansas City; H. B. Ferris, New Haven; B. F. Gaffney, New Britain, Conn.; A. F. Gates, Hartford, Conn.; E. W. Goodenough, Waterbury, Conn.; Madison Grant, New York; W. J. Hand, Scranton, Pa.; C. W. Hartridge, New York; G. G. Haven, New York; Forbes Hawkes, New York; F. T. Hill, New York; G. E. Hill, Bridgeport, Conn.; C. M. Hinkle, Osterville, Mass.; L. K. Hyde, Plainfield, N. J.; R. I. Jenks, New York; C. B. Jennings, Fairfield, Conn.; O. G. Jennings, New York; Charles Keeler, Memphis, Tenn.; William Kent, Kentfield, Calif.; H. B. Ketcham, New York; J. S. King, Little Britain, N. Y.; J. H. Kirkham, New Britain, Conn.; C. A. Knight, Peekskill, N. Y.; Samuel Knight, San Francisco; Alfred Leeds, Springfield, Mass.; John Leverett, New York; R. H. Lewis, Rochester, N. Y.; C. H. Ludington, Philadelphia; W. H. Ludington, New York; Robert Maxwell, New York; E. H. Norton, Springfield, Mass.; H. T. Partree, Eatontown, N. J.; H. F. Perkins, Chicago; G. D. Pettee, Great Barrington, Mass.; W. L. Phelps, New Haven; R. W. Playford, Uniontown, Pa.; John Rogers, New York; Benjamin Romaine, San Francisco; G. I. Rosenzweig, Kansas City; T. F. Sanford, Berkeley, Calif.; C. O. Scoville, New Haven; Lewis Seymour, Binghamton, N. Y.; J. R. Sheffield, New York; Paul Spencer, Philadelphia; Frederick Sprague, Chicago; W. L. Thacher, Nordhoff, Calif.; R. S. Thomas, New York; H. C. Tracy, New York; E. P. Trowb ridge, New Haven; F. D. Tuttle, Brooklyn, N. Y.; F. S. Woodward, Richmond Hill, N. Y.; George Woodward, Philadelphia; G. H. Young, New York. THE STORY OF THE REUNION 59 The first greetings of the new arrivals as they appeared at head- quarters were full of interest and enthusiasm, as in many instances there were meetings between men who had not met before since graduation. The arrival of some grizzled and bearded classmate, who had left college dark haired and smooth of face, was met first by sotto voce inquiries of "Who is that?" followed by the passing along of his name from man to man and ending with a mighty shout of welcome. More than once it happened that some stranger wandered in upon an errand and was affectionately greeted as a classmate by men who detected a fancied resemblance of twenty- five years ago; as when a '93 man received a rousing welcome from a group of men who were so sure he was Brady that only the appearance of the real Brady convinced them of their error. Of course, Billy Phelps always makes a record at an '87 reunion and it is expected. But this reunion gave him the chance of his life to make a unique record, for he sacrificed three months of his sabbatical year in Europe to attend, and traveled from Munich to be with us and preside over the dinner of Tuesday night. Saturday, the day of the gathering of the clans, was entirely given up to the welcoming of arriving men, to quiet converse under the tent and renewal of the suspended intimacy of twenty-five years ago. But evening brought the outdoor play of the Yale Dramatic Association, in the temporary amphitheater on the old Campus, where "in our day" stood Lyceum and North Middle, where many of the men gathered to see "Robin of Sherwood." Here many of the wives and some of the children of '87 were first in evidence, and the festal atmosphere was but little dampened by the slight drizzling rain and the sudden collapse of a considerable amount of detached shrubbery which formed a part of the stage scenery. Sunday morning found the men gathered again under the tent, whence a few either from interest or because they did not realize that for '87, attendance at Chapel is no longer compulsory, sallied forth to attend the Baccalaureate service. A few went down to Trinity Church to attend the morning service conducted by the rector, Scoville, '87. On Sunday afternoon came a pouring rain which dampened everything but the '87 enthusiasm. The Class accepted with unanimity the invitation of Bob and Mrs. Corwin to gather at their home on St. Ronan Street, despite the fact that the rain made the 60 THE QUARTER-CENTURY REUNION GATHERING OF THE CLANS AT COUNTRY CLUB anticipated outdoor feature of it impossible. A number of automo- biles conveyed us to the Corwins', where assembled not only the members but the wives and children and two of the mothers of the Class, Mrs. Curtis and Mrs. Thacher. Two hours of introduction and conversation, a few songs from an improvised quartet of men who once traveled with the glee clubs, first and second, and tea from the table presided over by Miss Margaret Corwin, filled the afternoon. THE STORY OF THE REUNION 61 Monday forenoon more arrivals and more of the coveted time together at headquarters, and about noon an exodus toward the Country Club on the shores of Lake Whitney. Here were gathered the men, women and children of the Class, meeting on the lawns and verandas and lunching together. Even the unattached men who insisted upon a bachelor table presided over by Tuney Play- ford, entered fully into the spirit of '87's first family reunion. After luncheon, Fred Hill organized a boys' club in a few minutes and a game of ball between the sons and their daddies gave to the latter more physical exercise than they appeared to have had for some time. It is unnecessary to mention the score, which, however, indicated the intention and ability of the next generation to do in baseball "as their daddies used to do." Even a home run by Henry Ketcham failed to save the game for the veterans against the hard hitting and rapid fielding of such coming kings of the diamond as Trevor Hill, John Rogers, the younger, Wallace Corwin and the Doc Knight of a few years hence. Some of the men spent an hour at the royal game of golf, and the rest scattered over the lawns and verandas of the Country Club, in ever changing groups, which were only with the greatest diffi- culty gathered together for the photograph which adorns another page of this volume. FATHERS VS. SONS AT THE COUNTRY CLUB THE QUARTER-CENTURY REUNION King, Brownson, Young, and Ketcham in action The Byers Hall Reception,, a Sheff function unknown in the days of our youth, but now a prominent feature of Commencement week, was attended by some of the men and more of the wives late Monday afternoon., and the Glee Club concert Monday evening attracted not a few. Tuesday was, of course, the great day of all. A few attended the meeting under the auspices of Phi Beta Kappa and Sigma Xi in the Chapel, but the Class was present almost en masse at the Alumni meeting over which Jim Sheffield presided, giving new evidence of those engaging oratorical qualities which are so familiar to us all. [Sheffield's speech is reproduced elsewhere.] The photograph on the steps of the old Library assembled every member of the Class except Sheffield, who was unable to escape from the Alumni meeting in time, and some of the sons, who, in some instances may be detected in the picture by their compara- tively youthful appearance, although there is but little apparent difference in age between Tuney Playford and Vic Caldwell's eldest, who graduated with the Class of 1912. Then came a hasty noonday luncheon at headquarters, quickly followed by the advent of the ladies and children who came to join us on the way to the Field for the Harvard game. Two trolley THE STORY OF THE REUNION cars were waiting on College Street bedecked with the '87 numerals, for the days when '87 marched the two weary miles from the Campus to the ball field are forever gone by not that we can't but because we have gained the courage to say we won't. The Wheeler and Wilson Band discoursed and the men filled the two cars with the exception of a part of the second, set aside for the ladies and children. The progress to the Field was intentionally interrupted far out Chapel Street, that we might return with cheers the greetings waved to us from a veranda by little Virginia Hubbard Curtis, the four-year-old daughter of our deceased valedictorian. THE HEAD OF THE PARADE G. E. Hill, Sheffield, Phelps 64 THE QUARTER-CENTURY REUNION '87 ON THE STAND AT THE GAME Outside the ball field we formed in orderly cavalcade, and headed the graduates' parade around the Field, not in the frivolous uniforms affected by some of the classes less endowed with graduate dignity and less confident of their personal beauty, but in the saner gar- ments of the street, ornamented only by a modest hat band of blue bearing the golden numerals of '87. The game was only an incident. It is marvelous to how few of us the final score of a ball game now means what it did a quarter of a century ago. We want to see Yale win. We burst forth into song and cheers of enthusiasm while it is being won and in a week, have to stop and ponder a moment to recall whether Yale won or not. It is no longer an event to be set down in history beside Waterloo, Sedan and Gettysburg. And yet, even so, it gave us added zest that Yale won the game, by a score of nine to six. There was no demand for a triumphant march down Chapel Street, but peacefully we sought our side-tracked trolley cars and were soon back at the corner of York and Chapel Streets, and in marching order for our round of visits to our old friends of the faculty. A few lusty cheers brought Baldy to the veranda. He claimed that he recognized us at sight, but how far the presence in the front rank of Billy Hand, with the old faithful '87 banner, which has traveled with us through the intervening years, contributed to that recognition, he failed to mention. The sound of Baldy's 1902 1906 and 1909 OTHER CLASSES ON THE FIELD 66 THE QUARTER-CENTURY REUNION G. E. Hill Sheffield, Hand, Phelps melodious voice for a moment carried us back to the classroom in Lyceum, but as we gathered the substance of his greeting, the illusion was dispelled. More cheers, and we moved on to where Andy Phillips awaited us, with that broad smile with which he sometimes helped a fellow over an insurmountable stumbling-block in classroom. It was a long hike to Prexy Dwight's, but it was worth it. Ninety-two was at his door when we arrived, but we gave dear old Prexy enough time to exchange the '92 button he wore while addressing them for the '87 button which adorned his coat as he came forward to greet "the first Class to graduate under his admin- istration." Every man marveled at the kindly treatment which time had bestowed upon him, realizing how little its passage has dimmed his eye, changed the kindly face or lessened the enthusiasm of this grand old man of Yale. A short cut soon brought us face to face with President Hadley at his home, made conspicuous by being directly opposite the resi- dence of Billy Phelps. He greeted us with a warmth which con- vinced us that but for '87, Yale College would never have been founded, or if founded, would have soon perished in the wilds of THE STORY OF THE REUNION 67 Saybrook. He has not been asked to revise the stenographer's notes, which read as follows: Well, that is good for '87. I was just talking with a She if class that graduated some ten years after you about their enormous wealth. When thinking of the Class of '87, I think of Progress and Poverty. This is a little different from the old recitation room there on the ground floor of Old Chapel, but I see a lot of the same faces, and I am glad of the memories of those days. You had lots of fun on that book. Sumner did not exactly like having the book used. He thought it was too good an advertisement for Henry George, and he was afraid you might put his principles into practice. Well, we depend upon you here to look after everything. We have Corwin to run Sheff and Billy Phelps to run Academic. Whenever there is any serious misunderstanding or rivalry between Sheff and Academic, we call Billy Phelps and Corwin into a dark room, give them sharp knives and let them settle it. You will notice as a result that they have large charity towards the failings of the whole world. Eighty-seven always was a charitable Class. In those days, the faculty needed it, and I thank you for it, and I thank you for furnishing such a good presiding officer for the meeting this morning. It was but the work of a moment to dismiss the band, break ranks and dash into the front yard of Billy Phelps' home at 110 Whitney Avenue, where Mrs. Phelps was entertaining the ladies of the Class. There was but little time to be spent here, but we marched in single file in at the front door, past the punch-bowl (where each man made a short but highly appreciated halt), out the back door, and thence in knots to the near-by New Haven Lawn Club, where the reunion dinner, the culminating event of the week was made ready. To mention the food and drink beyond the mere fact that they were "sauced by appetite" would be unnecessary were it not for the fact that the chief feature of the dinner was spring lamb raised by one of our farmer members, Ollie Jennings, on his Fairfield farm. Each man found a place of his own choice, save those few victims of the committee's decree, who were placed at the speakers' table flanking Billy Phelps, the toastmaster, on either side. Here were Fred Hill, filled with eloquence to the muzzle, Jim Sheffield, cool, calm, collected, and ready for any oratorical emergency, and near by Eddie Burke, Jim Archbald and the Class Secretary, each 68 THE QUARTER-CENTURY REUNION SOME OF BILLY'S HOUSE PARTY scared almost beyond hope at the prospect of having to stand up later and speak to the assembled '87 crowd. How the evening progressed,, with what intimate interchanges of wit and song and personal touch, can never be set forth in cold type to the satisfaction of writer or reader. To those who were THE QUARTER-CENTURY REUNION scared alirtu**t ^TbiMHjiw at the prospect of havifi^ to later and speak to the assembled '87 crowd. How the evening progressed, with what intimate interchanges of wit and song and personal touch, can never be set forth in cold type to the satisfaction of writer or reader. To those who were 70 THE QUARTER-CENTURY REUNION there it is a memory so vivid that it needs no printed word to recall it; to those who were not there, it can only be partly created by referring to the flashlight picture and the speeches. Two presentations and a visit from '87 S., interrupted the pro- gram as it was planned and set forth upon the menu card. It has rarely happened, at least in the presence of his classmates, that Billy Phelps has ever for a moment lost that complete command over himself which we all know so well. But the presentation to him of a loving cup in recognition not alone of his "long distance championship/' won by coming all the way from Munich to be with us, but even more of the affection of the Class for him, and its appreciation of his many services to it, put him hors de combat for a moment. Just how he "pulled himself together" and "came back" will appear from the stenographer's notes. The other presentation was the grandfather's cup. No one knew until Charlie Keeler arrived in New Haven that there was a grand- father in the Class, but when he announced that there was a daugh- ter in his daughter's home, there was a spontaneous demand for a cup for little Dorothy Lee Hart, the first grandchild of '87. Much interest and amusement accompanied the reproduction on a screen of the photographs of the men as they appeared in 1887. That some of them were not recognized at first was not surprising, but there was no one of them which entirely escaped recognition the name of the man passing from one to another and then rising into a mighty shout as the recognition became general. With the coffee and cigars came the general shifting of chairs which preceded Billy Phelps' demand for order and quiet, which he enforced by a policeman's club made from an old fence rail and that day sent to the Secretary by Horace Hart. He opened pro- ceedings as follows: The Toastmaster: I will ask all the men to rise while the names are read of those members of the Class who have died since the last reunion. THOMAS HAMLIN CURTIS CLINTON LARUE HARE JOHN HOWARD HUME HENRY IVISON DOROTHY LEE HART Keeler's Granddaughter with '87 "Grandfather's Cup' 72 THE QUARTER-CENTURY REUNION The Toastmaster: One of the most difficult things in this world is for a man to make a speech to friends whom he has known intimately for twenty-five years. They know him perhaps better than he knows himself, and how impossible at such a time as this would it be to express fine senti- ments in lapidary phraseology ! When Socrates made, not his post- prandial, but his pre-cocktail speech to the men of Athens, he said that it would be absurd to come before these people whom he had met on the street every day and make a carefully prepared speech like a schoolboy. The occasion was at the same moment too infor- mal and too serious for elaborate effects of rhetoric and elocution. "Leave your damnable faces and begin." We are not going to have any oratory tonight but rather some friendly talks. It is a good thing for us, after a quarter of a century, to sit around the same table and look into the old familiar faces, which are not gone, but are right here, illuminated with the light of a thousand reminiscences. I wish we might have had the whole Class together, with only those absent who are now with God. This may not be: but I miss some men who ought to be here. This reunion is like heaven as the old divine said. When he got to heaven he would be sure to see some there whom he had not expected to see, and sure to miss some that he thought would certainly be present. Now I am honestly surprised to see George Woodward here, be- cause George comes from Philadelphia, where it is impossible to get a running start. A Philadelphia man sat down to a dinner in New York, and all went well enough till they reached the salad. "This is the most delicious salad," said the Philadelphia guest, "what on earth is it?" "Why," replied the New Yorker, "it is common enough. It is snail salad. Don't you have snails in Philadelphia?" "Yes," said the man from the Schuylkill, "we have 'em, but we can't catch 'em." Life does not strike us all as funny, because everybody knows by this time that life is a great tragedy-and-comedy-all-mixed-up; but life is not always serious, when we have plenty of comedy mingled in the ingredients thereof, and a good many of us have that. Life appeals to me more and more as I advance in years. I don't know anything about it, but Fred Sprague must have had some serious moments when he started for this reunion. No mem- ber of the Class had seen him since Triennial. That Triennial of THE STORY OF THE REUNION 73 A GROUP AT THE COUNTRY CLUB ours was what Matthew Arnold would have called a fierce propo- sition. No wonder Fred never came back. Why,, he never came to, until he reached Chicago. I can see that Triennial now. For twenty-two years I have tried in vain to forget it. There were set speeches on the program,, but none at the dinner. The actual speeches were impromptu, and were delivered by all those present at the same moment. What speeches they were ! Each one came from the heart. Then at our Decennial, not everything happened according to the carefully prepared plan. Dick Thomas was doing his best to make a speech and some were actually listening to him, when just as he approached his peroration, Tuney Playford shouted in my ear, "D d good fellow, Thomas, but he can't make a speech, can he?" Dick got no further. There have been some humorously embarrassing moments at this blessed reunion. Bob Corwin, who has worked night and day to make things happen right, met one member of the Class who had not been here for some time. He rushed up to Bob, and said with an expectant smile, "You remember - ?" "Sure," said Bob, "where is he?" The most splendid feature of this reunion has been the Class house. This has been such a success that I want to say right here that 74 THE QUARTER-CENTURY REUNION at every single reunion in the future we are going to have a house, even if it takes Ollie Jennings' last cent. I don't care what it costs, we are going to have it. Never since the first day of Fresh- man year have we been so united, so actually together, as during the last few days. Nothing amuses me more, when I look into your faces, than the common talk about the "Yale type." It is often assumed that one of the worst things about Yale is that it runs all men into one mould, and that when they graduate, they are all alike. Now all Yale men are alike in one respect loyalty to Yale. This loyal attitude is just as true of '87 as of all other classes but there the similarity begins and ends. When Yale is attacked in any part of the world, then immediately, to an outsider, all Yale men look alike, because they are all in the same attitude. But just think of the men sitting here tonight, and at once the idea of the "Yale type" becomes laughable. And I think that there never was a class that had so many varying units as ours. It has always been a hard task to properly place '87, because we were composed of some hundred and fifty individualities absolutely differing from one another, and totally different from the members of all preceding and following classes. The Yale type, quotha! Consider Bill Kent. In the stone age there may have been some primitive man like Bill, but if there were, he was drowned in the flood. We have fairly complete records of human beings since that inundation, and there has been no person even remotely resembling our Bill. Then for a pair of heavenly twins, take Gerald Beard and Toot Bigelow. Not only is Toot unlike any other individual, but he does not bear the slightest resemblance to himself. He passes through phases, like Saint-Beuve. He presents the anomaly of passing through countless phases without ever being phased. This to me is one of Toot's greatest charms. He is always interesting because always different. In the variety of his personalities, Toot is ever unpre- dictable, but I had rather sit at his feet and hear him talk than listen to almost any one of our latter-day prophets. As specimens of the "Yale type," look at the University Crew as it rowed at New London in our Junior year. Four men from '87 sat in our victorious shell John Rogers, Ernest Caldwell, Middle- brook, and Hartridge. Four men have never lived who were more unlike than these four. The only thing they had in common was THE STORY OF THE REUNION A CORDIAL WELCOME ability to row. That they had in good measure, for there has never been a class in any college in the world that has had such a rowing record as our beloved Class of '87. Caldwell rowed in thirteen races while he was at Yale, and never lost a race ! This seems to me the salient characteristic of '87 its collection of units. Indeed, the astounding miracle of humanity consists in 76 THE QUARTER-CENTURY REUNION this, that although the human race in the long run balances up to a certain average, that although human passions and desires are so similar that a play by Sophocles is as true to life now as a play by Clyde Fitch, that the ideal of a gentleman set forth by Confucius is precisely the ideal in London and New York today still, each person in the world is in the last analysis unlike any other person in the past or in the present. This is the miracle of Personal Identity. No class at Yale, however, has exhibited so excellent an illustration of the miracle as '87. Some of you have been very successful; some of you have been only moderately successful; some of you have not yet been successful at all. But each one of you has the pride and pleasure of knowing that you are unique, that you do not resemble anyone else, that you have something that no one else possesses and which you cannot lose. Each one of you is the captain of his soul. Now just as it was remarkable that the Yale Crew in the years 1886 and 1887, consisting of varying and hostile units, could yet A GROUP AT THE COUNTRY CLUB THE STORY OF THE REUNION 77 unite successfully against the common foe, so it is notable and splendid that such an interesting, such a peculiar, such a diver- gent collection of human beings as I am now addressing can get together so loyally, happily and harmoniously as we have done during this reunion. To tell the honest truth, I think this is the first time we have actually got together with no hind-thoughts to disturb our union. We are intimate friends because in early life we shared the same experiences together, because we lived for four years beneath the elms. We ask no questions of each other tonight. We don't care what you have done or what you have not done; we belong to each other, because we all belong to '87. While we were eating dinner at the old house on Crown Street the other night, I had a strange feeling that twenty-five years had been annihilated; that we were undergraduates again; that we had just come in from a victory at the Field, and that we were all going to recite to Baldy or Tiggy Tighe the next morning, and had our lessons to dig- out. There is no friendship on earth like the friendship formed by early associations. We all of us make new friends by our occu- pations in the world; but these new friends cannot take the places of those who are bound to us by class and college ties. A man does not realize this until he actually comes to a reunion and sees the fellows again. I dare say some of you men looked forward to this gathering with no pleasant anticipations at all ; you regarded it as a bore, which nothing but a sense of duty made you attend and you wished in advance that it were all over and done with, and that you were back in your absorbing occupations of family life, work and sport. But when you got here, and looked into each other's faces, and remembered all the intimate associations brought vividly back to life simply by seeing one another again then a mighty affection for '87 and every man in it took irresistible possession of your heart. Let us thank God that this is true. Now it is fortunate that we have Fred Hill here fortunate for the Class that he belongs to us, for he has helped to make it famous, and fortunate for us that he is here at this moment and that he is going to speak to us. Fred's achievements in literature have brought him an honorary degree from Yale, the first man in the Class to receive this distinction, but I will frankly say that his success in literature has surprised me. As an undergraduate, Fred was a witty conversationalist, and original in his thinking, but the 78 THE QUARTER-CENTURY REUNION only sign of literary promise that he gave was the fact that he always sharpened his lead pencils with a razor. Just why he did this we have no right to inquire. It suffices me that he did it. I have the honor of presenting to you a lawyer, historian, novel- ist,, our classmate, Fred Hill. Frederick Trevor Hill: Billy Phelps, and the rest of you: At bachelor dinners, such as this, there is usually a toast to "The Ladies," and it may be that, misled by the title of my theme, you are harboring the delusion that I am to have the honor of responding to some such sentiment as "Wives and Sweethearts," for Cupid, if I remember correctly, is sometimes referred to as "The Eternal Boy." Misunderstandings of this sort are certainly invited by lack of precision in the use of words. Witness, for instance, the experience of the counsel, who, in examining an old negro, asked him where he had first met his wife. "I didn't meet her," responded the witness. "What do you mean by that?" demanded the lawyer. "Well, boss, I really never met her. I reckon she just sort of overtook me." Again you probably remember what happened to the man who approached a ticket seller's window in the Pennsyl- vania railroad station, purse in hand, and said, "I've got to go to Scranton." "Are you telling me your troubles," snapped the ticket agent, "or do you want transportation?" In view of these convincing arguments for verbal precision, perhaps I had better explain at once that "The Eternal Boy," about whom I am to speak tonight, is not Cupid but that other "cherub who must have talked long hours with Puck," namely, Peter Pan, the boy who "refused to grow up." Now those of you who have read Barrie's story of Peter Pan, or who have seen the stage version of that masterpiece, will recall that there was war to the knife between Peter Pan and the villainous pirate, Captain Hook. Well, the author of this marvelous tale claims (and I use the word "claims" advisedly, for before I conclude I shall show you that he is entirely at fault), Mr. Barrie claims, I say, that it was Peter Pan's "cockeyness" which aroused the Pirate's ire, and kept it at white heat. The boy was unquestionably "cockey." Even his friend, the Indian Princess, had to admit that he tried her sorely at times. THE STORY OF THE REUNION 79 F. T. HILL AND SON But she could never deny him anything, you remember, because, as she put it, "he still had his first teeth." Those of us who are parents understand exactly how she felt about that ! Now, I realize that it is a perilous thing for anyone to dispute an author's statements concerning the children of his brain. Nevertheless, I feel compelled to take issue with Mr. Barrie when he asserts that it was Peter Pan's "cockeyness" which caused the Pirate Hook to wage his unceasing warfare against the boy. Well would it have been for Captain Hook if his differences with the lad had been as simple as that! Well would it have been for Captain Hook, I say, if his only ground of complaint against the boy had been a little "cockeyness" which might have been cured by a sound spanking such as is good for the best of boys at times. But the trouble between them was something far more serious, far more subtle and basic than that, and I will tell you what it was. It lay in the fact the terrible fact that the boy refused to grow up, and insisted on still remaining a boy, while the Pirate grew 80 THE QUARTER-CENTURY REUNION older every day, and found himself sternly excluded from the Court of Boyville whose joys he once had known. Now, there you have a situation, quite sufficient to explain the bitterest of feuds and we, who are now celebrating our Twenty- fifth Anniversary, must, I think, feel some sympathy for the lonely old buccaneer as he peers enviously into the Realm of Youth over the rising wall of years, gnawing his grizzled mustachios and clenching his suspiciously rheumatic hands ! But sympathize with him as we may, one cannot exclude the thought of what a fool he was. If instead of trying to tear down the barriers of age, and hurl the fragments at the younger genera- tion, he had displayed some interest in and sympathy for their enthusiasms if he had proved himself a sportsman instead of a spoil-sport; if he had formed a boys' club among the "Lost Boys" instead of trying to use a club on them; if, in a word, he had made himself a part of them, instead of apart from them, I venture to assert that he would not only have soon ceased to be a hungry- hearted outsider but would have made a name and fame for him- self, as one of those fortunate leaders of boy life, who live again in their companionship with youth and are permitted once more to dream its splendid dreams. By Jove, just fancy what a magnificent club leader that adven- ture-crammed Pirate would have made ! and what an opportunity he missed! Why, I'd like to bet that Captain Hook could have depopulated every other boys' club in the "Never Never Land" and made the other leaders absolutely green with envy ! Think, too, of what a perfectly ideal scoutmaster he would have made! He wouldn't have had to sit up nights learning how to tie knots and studying the Scout's Manual, in order to keep a few pages ahead of his patrol. He would have had the whole business right at his finger's ends, and the mere thought of being "given the hook" would have been quite sufficient to maintain discipline among the most refractory squad of youngsters that ever tried to trail a mile or light a fire by using "only two matches, or a burning glass." Of course, I do not know how Captain Hook would have suc- ceeded as a Big Brother. I wonder if you have ever heard of the Big Brothers? It's rather a silly name, I think, but the idea behind it is not at all silly for it enables men like Captain Hook, THE STORY OF THE REUNION 81 and, dare I say, men like you and me? to keep in touch with youth. Let me tell you something about it. In New York when a boy is brought into the Children's Court for any reason, he is assigned to the care of a man who volunteers to be his "guide, philosopher and friend." This man is in no sense of the word an officer of the court. His business is to make that boy understand that there is someone outside of his family who stands behind him and is ready at all times to sympathize with him, listen to him, and give him sound, sensible advice. There are, even in the selfish city of New York, hundreds of men who are engaged in work of that character, and I can tell you that their influence for good is absolutely incalculable. I said a few moments ago that I did not know how Captain Hook would have succeeded in a job like that. But on second thought I make bold to state that he would have done splendidly at it. In the first place, it would have been good for him, because it would have brought him into close touch with all sorts and conditions of the young male animal, and shown him points of view which would never otherwise have come within his horizon at all. It would have brought him into that intimate com- radeship which most fathers would like to enjoy with their sons, but which is denied to many, and all this would, as I say, have been good for Captain Hook. And Captain Hook would have been good for the boys because he was one of those reserved men who do not obtrude themselves unduly upon a boy's notice, and who win their confidence without seeming to seek it, speaking seldom, but always to the point. He was a born master of men, was that old Pirate Chief, and if I were a judge of the Children's Court that is just the kind of man I would like to put in charge of some of my most difficult wards. Of course, there are some fields of activity which a wise Captain Hook would leave severely alone. For instance, if he had tried to keep himself young by getting a professorship of English at Yale and forming a Pundit Club, Billy Phelps would have nailed him to his own mast ! And if he tried to circle Bob Corwin's end in getting next to the boys in Sheff, he would have been downed in good old familiar manner. Moreover, being a bachelor he could not hope to renew his youth by having a son on the Yale Football Team like Henry Ketcham. Neither could he have competed with Brownson, or Thacher, or Pettee, or Kent, or Weed, or Bissell or any of you 82 THE QUARTER-CENTURY REUNION who live right in the heart of Boyville. But the point I wish to make is that there were and are lots of ways, by which Captain Hook, by which all the Captain Hooks of grizzled mustachios and suspiciously rheumatic hands can keep in touch with youth, and we've got to do this, every Captain Hook of us, if we are to be of any further use in the world. The most useless human being on earth today is the man who lives constantly in the past, intolerant of new ideas and fresh ideals, unresponsive to and unobservant of the vital, living forces of this age. The man who sends his boy to school and does not become something of a schoolboy; the man who sends his son to college and does not, for the time being, become something of an undergraduate; the man who having no child of his own does not interest himself in the youth of his land is not playing the game. He is simply playing solitaire and cheat- ing himself besides. I tell you there never was a really great man in this country who did not have something of the big boy about him to the very day of his death. When a man loses the "play instinct" there isn't much of him that's left alive. He grows formal with men And with women polite, And distrustful of both, When they're out of his sight. He eats for his stomach And drinks for his head And loves for his pleasure And 'tis time he was dead. We are living in a most interesting, the most vital, and I am almost tempted to say the most critical period in the history of our Republic. We are already facing, or we are soon to face great innovations in our form of government, vast changes in our eco- nomic system, and if I am not greatly mistaken, an entire readjust- ment of our whole social and industrial status. I do not say this in any spirit of alarm. I do not think there is anything to be alarmed about. But I do think there is something to think about, and we have got to think about it, or we will have our thinking done for us by minds less disciplined, less matured, but more virile than our own. It is no time for us to "sit with our backs to the sunlight THE STORY OF THE REUNION 83 and sing requiems to our own shadows." It is time for us to take precautions against the enervating influences of sluggish blood, and to prove ourselves the comrades and not the critics of the rising generation. It is high time for us to stop snubbing "The Eternal Boy" for his "cockeyness" and to form an offensive and defensive alliance with him against all the chicken-hearted calamity howlers, and all the self-appointed apostles of discontent who aspire to leadership for want of better men. Fellow Pirates, Brother Buccaneers, Captain Hooks of '87 ! Let us make a truce with Peter Pan the Spirit of Eternal Youth before it is too late, so that no matter what our age may be, we can still prove that we are young enough not only to understand youth, but to learn of it, and to work with it, to the end, that this nation, under God, may have indeed a new and splendid birth of freedom. The Toastmaster: Through the kindness of one of our friends whom we all know, we are going to have some stereopticon pictures of Yale life in our day, and some portraits of the Yale men as we then knew them. Now let some one switch off the lights, and as these faces appear, let the first man who thinks he recognizes the portrait shout the name. The Toastmaster: I have two announcements to make, both of which will interest you. Mrs. Virginia Hubbard Curtis, the mother of John and Tom, who some years ago founded the John Hubbard Curtis prize at Yale for original work in English, has given today a sum of money to found a scholarship in honor of Tom, our Class valedictorian. This scholarship will be known as the Thomas Hamlin Curtis Scholarship. There is no woman in the world more interested in the Class of '87 than Mrs. Curtis, and her love for the Class is shown in the spirit of self-sacrifice that has dictated these generous gifts. She has also provided all the flowers on our table tonight. I suggest that we all rise as a tribute of respect to this wonderful woman. [The Class rose.] 84 THE QUARTER-CENTURY REUNION AN '87 MEMORIAL ROOM IN WRIGHT HALL A Member of the Class: I move that the thanks and greetings of the Class be sent to Mrs. Curtis as an expression of our appreciation. [This was immediately voted.] THE STORY OF THE REUNION 85 The Toastmaster: I wish that we might sometime express to the three grand women of '87 our affection and respect. I refer, first, to Mrs. Curtis, then to that splendid woman, the mother of Bob Maxwell, now nearly ninety years old, and last, but not least, to the mother of Bill Thacher, who is a great Yale mother. We are all '87, but she is eighty-eight ! I said I had two announcements to make. The second is the gift by a member of '87 of two memorial suites in the new Freshman dormitory, Wright Hall. Both of these suites will commemorate the Class of '87. The donor says one should be in honor of dear old Stuffy Hunt, one of the most loyal Yale men that ever lived, and I am happy that he has chosen his name. The naming of the other suite has been left to us, and I am glad to say that the Class has decided to honor in this suite the names of John and Tom Curtis. This is one way of showing our respect for them, and our love for their mother. Now we are going to hear from Jim Sheffield. When we grad- uated from Yale, we were, of course, all gentlemen. But when we came to Yale, there were in the entire Class only three finished gentlemen. One was Jim Sheffield, one was Sam Knight, and I am going to let each man here tonight name the third one himself. The reason why Jim and Sam do not look any older now than they did as Freshmen, is because they then looked just as old as they possibly could. Jim was a finished man of the world when he rocked in the cradle. It is stated, and I see no reason to doubt the accuracy of the remark, that Jim was born with a cutaway coat on. In comparison with our Jim, Chesterfield seems somewhat crude. But it is the man behind the manner that counts ; and whenever our Class wishes to be represented in a public way, we instinctive!} 7 turn to Jim. The greatest Yale gathering ever held was the dinner in New York, when the only speakers were the President of Yale and the President of the United States. The man chosen to preside at that memorable dinner was our own beloved Jim, whom we all admire. Go to it, Jim ! James R. Sheffield: Mr. Toastmaster and fellows of '87: It was certainly worth coming back to this reunion, just to hear that speech of Billy 86 THE QUARTER-CENTURY REUNION Phelps. No other man in the Class could have made it, and gotten away alive. Personalities long since forgotten, peculiarities of which we had trustingly hoped we had outlived even the memory, all ruthlessly exposed, yet without hurt or offense, by the gifted tongue and nimble wit of our beloved Billy. To what he has done for us, in sacrificing a vacation for this anniversary, must be added our large man-sized thanks to those other classmates like George Hill, Bob Corwin and Robert Max- well, who have given us the headquarters on Crown Street, with the old Fence, the easy chairs, the agile waiters bringing first aid to comradeship and fellowship, and making it possible for the Class of '87 to live as one big family of boys for the first time since graduation, perhaps for the first time since we entered Yale. Personal ambition, worldly distinction, the flimsy trappings of wealth and caste, have here been dropped, and in the atmosphere of that Crown Street garden, we have learned at last the final lesson of our course the real manhood of our Class. Something stronger than our selfish interests, more potent than the struggle for riches and power, has brought us back. Just what it is can never be defined. But was it not in part exemplified, as we marched to the ball field this afternoon, by a little girl waving a tiny blue flag? She was only three or four years old. Yet, before her halted seventy men who had graduated from Yale twenty-five years ago stopping a long line of marching men and cars, hushing bands of music, and stilling songs and cheers, to pay tribute to the baby daughter of a dead classmate. It may have meant little to her, but it meant a lot to us. It was the true Yale spirit, and the meaning of it must have reached from earth to Heaven. I am proud to have lived those twenty-five years to see the Class of '87 stop and uncover before that tiny girl in blue. And then, too, the pictures George Hill has had thrown upon the screen showing us the men we were. Laughter and tears were close allies during those scenes. It is the influence on our lives of the men into whose long ago faces we have just looked that has brought us back. Only a twelfth of our lives was spent here; and yet the four years at Yale are more often in our thoughts and more memorable in our lives than the whole of our boyhood before enter- ing, and far more than any four years since our graduation. One THE STORY OF THE REUNION 87 IN MEMORY OF ALBERT GAY HIKI OASS OF 1687 THE GIFT OF HJS CLASS MANTEL IN THE HUNT MEMORIAL ROOM IN WRIGHT HALL twelfth only of our entire existence lived here, yet containing most of our happiest memories and all of our warmest friendships. You cannot think of Yale in the abstract. Harvard men may do it. Princeton men may do it. Columbia men probably do think of their University in that way. But it is not so with us. You cannot recall Yale without thinking of the men of your Class and your time, who made for us then, and always will, our Yale. In the keeping alive of this feeling of common interest, no one is 88 THE QUARTER-CENTURY REUNION more responsible than our Class Secretary, George Hill. Blame that belongs to us, he always takes. Praise that belongs to him, he always shares. In his modest way he has been one of the truest exponents of the typical Yale man. Yale taught us all that the life that counts is the life of hard work; that mastery of self is essential to leadership of men; that victories come most often to those who train the hardest; and that every encounter between men is won or lost in the long hours of preparation. Whatever we were in college days, careless or earnest, idler or student, we have since learned as men, in the bitter experi- ences of the twenty-five intervening years, the truth, the truth Yale tried so hard to make us, when boys, understand. She taught us "ideals are not useless because unattainable," and, therefore, to cling to ours in the flush of triumph, in the face of success, in spite of defeats. It is our noblesse oblige; ours in common with all the classes that since 1701 have silently taken their places in Yale's great Hall of Fame. Fellows of '87, there is one man in this Class who has kept unsullied his faith and his ideals, and added to them an enthu- siasm and loyalty which is ever an inspiration for '87. He went abroad in the full knowledge that if he returned for this reunion he would lose a quarter of his well-earned vacation. He has given up three months of play and traveled four thousand miles to be with us. No man ever paid you a greater compliment than did Billy Phelps when he boarded the steamer to return to help you celebrate the Twenty-fifth Anniversary of our Class. No wonder he is voted, year after year, the most popular instructor at Yale. Keen of wit, a fountain of wisdom, distinguished in letters, prince of good fellows, loved by every man who knows him, Billy Phelps, your classmates unite with Yale men everywhere in acclaiming you as one of the best beloved. Now it has been our custom to give a long-distance cup to the man who travels the longest distance to attend our reunions. This year the Class has felt no ordinary cup would meet the require- ments. It must be big indeed to contain the affection felt for you by every member of our Class. I've had lots of fun in the Class of '87, but I've never had as much pleasure as I feel tonight in presenting you with this loving cup. It means all that the name implies. As it is passed from man to man to drink your health and THE STORY OF THE REUNION 89 Corwin G. E Hill Sheffield Phelps happiness, it will gather added meaning from the depths of Class loyalty and sentiment. May it ever be a reminder of what you are to us, and cherished both by you and '87 as a symbol of Yale comradeship, and so through the coming years answer our heartfelt plea : Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet, Lest we forget, lest we forget. After the cup had been presented to Billy Phelps, he made the following remarks. 90 THE QUARTER-CENTURY REUNION William Lyon Phelps: I am so torn up between pride and astonishment that I don't know what to say. The beauty of this cup is a tremendous com- pliment in itself, but as I honestly know what you men mean by it, I can only say that it is one of the finest things that has ever happened to me. So long as I live,, and I hope I may live a long time, I shall remember this splendid gift with the highest appre- ciation and gratification. I wish I could fittingly express just the way I feel about this magnificent present from the Class. I can only thank you from the bottom of my heart. You have given me this cup because I came over three thousand miles to attend this reunion. Let me say a word about this. Five years ago, at our last dinner, I said that I had never made a single sacrifice, either in coming to Yale, or in coming back to our meet- ings. This was true. I thought of the men in our Class who had expended time and money to come from great distances, who had given up profitable and important engagements; then I thought of myself, who lived here anyway, and I felt pretty small in comparing myself with others. But this year I had my chance, an opportunity to make a sacrifice to give up three months in Europe in order to be present at this dinner. I cannot tell you how happy I am to have had this chance, and to have availed myself of it. Since I reached New Haven, there has not been one moment of regret. It has been all joy and no sacrifice. I do not deserve a single mark of recognition for this ; for I have, after all, pleased myself far more than I can possibly have pleased you. Of course I do not believe one word of what Jim Sheffield has said about me. It is pleasant to hear such language, but I know it is not true. I am not that kind of a man at all. But I know, in acting as your spokesman, he conveyed to me the affection of the Class, and it is your affection that makes me happy. Now let us pass this loving cup around, and let each drink in turn to the Class of '87. And those of you who don't drink and no one has to drink unless he wants to just take the cup in your hands and smell of it. [At this point, much to the consternation of Charlie Keeler, the Toastmaster directed his battery toward him, singling him out for especial distinction as the first grandfather in the Class. An THE PHELPS CUP 92 THE QUARTER-CENTURY REUNION attractive loving cup was then presented to Keeler in recognition of this distinction, from which the Class drank the health of the three generations of the Keeler family. Keeler responded, ad- mitting without reluctance his status as a grandfather, and feel- ingly pledged himself to see that the first grandchild of '87 should be nurtured in continuous loyalty to Yale and '87.] The Toasimaster: We are now going to have a speech from dear old Eddie Burke, if he can make it, and I think he can. He is lineally descended and the descent was very rapid from Edmund Burke, the great Irish orator. A short time ago, I talked with an undergraduate, who bore the same name as one of the greatest orators in American history. I asked him if he were related to the big one, and I found he could not talk at all ! An impediment in his speech prevented him from connected power of delivery, but I finally discovered he was the grandson of the orator. Thus in two generations speech stopped altogether. You will now have a chance to see what the wear and tear of time has done to the descendant of Edmund Burke, but whatever may be the result from the standpoint of rhetoric, we all know that physically and morally the Irish mega- phone had nothing on our Eddie. Eddie is no Dago if he does come from Genoa, for he comes from Genoa, Nebr., and he can kill any man in the state with a blow of his fist. This being the case, it is with some hesitation that I make these introductory remarks. I hasten to say that we are all proud of him, and we want to hear him talk. E. L. Burke: Billy and fellows: While Billy was doing the honors here tonight and delighting everybody in his usual way, Jim Archbald and I stole over to the Class headquarters, thinking that we might get an opportunity to polish our speeches, but when we got there we were stricken with stage fright and it was decided that the best way out of it was for Jim and me to take a quiet sneak to Savin Rock and amid the good influences of that resort, deliver our speeches to each other. We had the thing all fixed up, secured an auto and gave the chauffeur orders to go to Savin Rock as quickly THE STORY OF THE REUNION 93 Burke, Gates and S. Knight as possible. The minute we got in the machine he turned her wide open and came straight to this Club at full speed. We remon- strated, but to no avail, as he claimed to have orders from Billy Phelps to bring us here, so here we are in spite of ourselves. A few evenings ago I happened to have my wireless to my ear when I began to get distress signals from Waterbury, Conn. I cut in and learned that your Class Committee were in such dire straits to get someone to talk here tonight, that in place of the toast "Well Anyhow/' by Billy Kent, they were willing to accept "Well Anything," by anybody. Rather than permit your Class Committee to go into bankruptcy, I decided to take the job and incidentally punish the Class. Not long ago I was extravagant enough to buy a new automobile. I had so little knowledge of its internal anatomy that when I took the wheel I never knew what was going to happen. It usually 94 THE QUARTER-CENTURY REUNION happened all right. Naturally, the machine was deeply grieved and somehow I felt as if I owed it an apology. Now I feel just as much a novice in attempting to address the Class tonight, so I think you ought to deal very charitably with me. A good many years ago when I first became engaged to my wife, she asked me if I would not go with her and meet an old maiden aunt. After I was duly presented to the aunt, the very first thing she wanted to know was what I did for a living. I explained to her that I was an honest producer of cattle and hogs. She was evidently not very much impressed, because the only remark she made was, "Well, anyway, that is better than nothing." I have always tried to at least live up to that standard. You know I am supposed to be substituting for Billy Kent tonight, but filling his place is simply out of the question, because there is only one Billy Kent. Apropos of which I am going to change one of Kipling's rhymes so that it will read: There was never a Kent like Billy, not since the world began, For Billy talks with ex-Presidents as you would talk with a man. Fred Chase suggested for me a nice little five-minute chat (so characteristic of Fred) about the Middle West, but I am not going to talk to you much about the Middle West. You have been hear- ing very loud noises from the convention at Chicago this week, and they are likely to grow louder every day. Possibly some of you don't like the tune, so I will just dwell long enough to say that the Middle West is rapidly coming into its own. It will con- tinue to grow in relative importance in years to come. The strength of the nation lies here, and Yale can make out of our western boys just the kind of material the nation needs most. Unfortunately, Yale has not been getting anywhere near her proper proportion of this material, simply because she has been too conservative about reaching out for the high school boys of the Middle West. She really needs them and they need her, and for the good of all the time must soon come when Yale with her entrance requirements will meet halfway the fine high schools of the Middle West, and that too without having to lower her standard of admission. But let's get back to '87. It's a far cry from Class Day twenty- five years ago to the present time. We have now reached a white THE STORY OF THE REUNION 95 milestone in our life's course. We shall soon be hunting the shady places and looking for the light end of the job. We are, as it were, on a hilltop where it is not only our right but our duty to take a long look backward, as well as a long look ahead. Looking back- ward, we haven't any apologies to make for the past, as the title of my toast might imply. To be sure, we haven't furnished the country with any presidents, that is, not yet, but we have done our fair share in the fields of politics, science and literature. I forget, boys, what comes next, but it is very important, so with your permission I will just look at my notes to see what ought to come next. It is not on my cuff, anyhow. Oh, yes, we were talking about looking backward. On the whole we have done our share of work for the common good, for the things that are best worth while in the communities where we live and in the life of the nation. That's what counts. There are a lot of us, perhaps the majority, who have had to work like Trojans to make a living, and haven't had the time or strength to live up to our high ideals. Looking forward, no doubt part of us will be compelled to keep right on hustling to the end of the chapter, just to keep things going. That's one of the hardest things about life, but I imagine there are few of us who, during the next twenty years, will care to pile up money just for money's sake. We are now at that stage of the game where we ought to be interested not so much in ourselves as in the other fellow, and it really doesn't make very much difference whether the other fellow is a friend, the community in which we live, or the nation at large. The main thing is that it shall be the other fellow. It seems to me that we ought to count ourselves lucky to be living in the midst of a great moral awakening in our country. There is a struggle all around us, the altruistic spirit is abroad, and fortunate indeed are those of us who in the years to come can take an active part in the campaign for justice and fair play. Now, fellows, I wish I might talk to you right out of my heart. It is mighty hard for anyone to do that, and especially hard for me. Somehow I feel differently toward this reunion than I did the others. I guess we all do. Those were full of youth and joy and gladness. To be sure, those elements are all present in this reunion, except possibly the youth, but there is also something rather sad about this one that was not present before. The sadness 96 THE QUARTER-CENTURY REUNION and the gladness are so mixed up that I actually don't know whether to laugh or cry. So far in life's journey we have traveled along the road, while not together, at least within hailing distance of each other, but when we part this time there will be a tendency to scatter and each man take his own path regardless of the others. In this respect men are a good deal like wild animals. Isolation seems to be one of the penalties of old age, but the thought of it hurts, and it ought not to be so. I hope that in our Class it won't and that every man here will make a fight to hold on to his youth by keeping alive and fresh his interest in and love for the Class. It is one of my chief joys to know that while all the rest of the world is growing old, the members of '87 will always seem like boys to me. The heart is really the seat of youth, and if a man is young in spirit, well, anyhow, what do the years matter? There is only one way to keep the heart young and that is to fill it with love. I thank you. [The remarks of the Toastmaster in introducing the next speaker have been censored (if not censured) by the editor. The gist of those remarks being to call attention to the Class Secretary, he responded somewhat as follows:] George E. Hill: Mr. Toastmaster and fellows: No man finds himself in the position which I occupy tonight without wondering for a moment, at least, why he happened to be picked to be "butchered to make a Roman holiday." It is rare, however, that the speaker and his audience are as unanimous as you and I are tonight, that it ought not to have been done. It does not seem that the time has come for me again to be the "goat," but after all, the secretary of a college class rather gets used to it. I have thought many times that the man who wrote that popular song which has been going the rounds of late must have had in mind a class secretary when he wrote it, for the chorus runs, as I remember, "Let George do it, let George do it." I suppose the committee in charge of this function (of which committee I am not even an ex-officio member) when they assigned to me the toast of "Eighty-seven in Retrospect" had some serious THE STORY OF THE REUNION 97 Kirk ham and Brownson thought in mind, though what it was I am just now unable to detect, for, of course, I cannot talk seriously tonight of '87 in retrospect. I wish I might do so, "by the book," as it were; talk to you from the unwritten records of '87, of those sidelights upon character and quality in individuals of which I have knowledge because I am Secretary, but many of which are inviolable confidences. If I could talk to you of some of our men who have fought the good fight and won, of some who have fought equally well and have not, I could make it clear to you why it is that a class secretary comes to love his Class as no other man does or can. But this I cannot do and can only refer to some few of those incidents in lighter vein which leave you at liberty to deem them apocryphal or not as suits the pleasure of the individual. 98 THE QUARTER-CENTURY REUNION Now there is our toastmaster sometimes called the contributing editor of the Alumni Weekly. I have often wondered why it was that of all men in this Class, he alone had the privilege of roasting any and every fellow and no fellow had the privilege of roasting him. The Toastmaster: I am a roaster, myself. Mr. Hill: Indeed you are, and I've got something on you. You may not believe it, but I have. I may be getting into trouble by relating it, but I am going to run the risk. There is always someone on an occasion like this who is willing to rush in where angels fear to tread; and that is exactly what one does who undertakes to tackle Billy Phelps, especially where he has the last word. But I do want to tell you about Billy's speech up at Horace Taft's school. You all know that school and many of you know of the Sunday afternoon exercises they have up there for the boys. They are gathered together in the Chapel each Sunday and someone is there to talk to them, sometimes upon some religious subject, sometimes to enforce some moral lesson, sometimes upon some topic of the times. But it is always a serious occasion appropriate to the day. Not long ago, Billy was the speaker on one of those occasions, and his subject was "The Fair Game"; and he talked to them, as Billy alone can, on playing the game fair. He talked to them of being fair in their studies, fair in their sports, fair to their parents, their teachers, their fellows. For a half hour he swayed and charmed those little chaps, with his wisdom, his wit and his per- suasiveness, always harking back to his text, "The Fair Game." Then he closed with this brilliant peroration: "And so, boys," he said, "to sum it all up, play the game fair, play the game of life fair, so that when the lights are turned low, the chairs are set back against the wall and the cards and chips are put away, you may hear the welcome words, 'Well done, good and faithful servant.' " It is a curious kind of a job, this job of being Class Secretary. I wish I could tell you a lot of things about it, but I will just give you a sample. THE STORY OF THE REUNION 99 [At this point the proceedings were interrupted by the arrival in the dining-room of the Class of '87 Sheff.] The Toastmaster (after '87 S. had retired) : Now we will come to order again. We are not going to let the Class Secretary off with such a short speech. The Class Secretary has the floor. He is going to talk longer and talk right out. Mr. Hill: I don't know just "where I was at" when this interruption occurred. The Toastmaster: You were engaged in roasting me at that time. Go on with your nefarious work. Mr. Hill: It seems to me that I was speaking about some of the things which happen to a class secretary. Some of the things which are put up to him to do strike him as remarkable until he really under- stands the purpose back of them. For instance, there's the letter I had a few days ago from Billy Hand, making requisition to supply his needs for this reunion. He wanted so many tickets for the outdoor play, so many for the game, etc., and a bedroom which must have either an iron or a brass bedstead. Now just why he must have an iron or brass bedstead was more than I could fathom, until I learned the reason from him. It seems a wooden bedstead has a solid footboard, while the footboard of an iron or brass bedstead, being open, enabled him to stick his feet through and so extend his six feet four at full length. A number of years ago I was on the Pacific coast and ran into Benjie Romaine down at Los Angeles. We traveled along leisurely up the coast toward San Francisco, and stopped one day at one of those magnificent seashore hostelries at Santa Barbara one of those places where in the season they take your money away from you in bunches. We went to our rooms on our arrival and had been there about fifteen minutes when I heard a great racket out in the corridor. I looked out the door and saw Benjie with 100 THE QUARTER-CENTURY REUNION his grip in one hand and his coat, collar and necktie in the other, dashing down the hall into the office. I followed and reached the office just in time to hear him say to the clerk: "What kind of a house is this ? Give me a bill and let me get out of this place !" "Why, what's the matter?" said the clerk. "Figure it up, figure it up," said Benjie, "I've been up there in that room just fifteen minutes and just discovered the notice on the door saying that the price of the room is twenty-four dollars a day." "Oh, if that's all," said the clerk, "you can go back and finish dressing. That's the price in the season. Just now it's out of season, and we are charging you three fifty per day with meals." Benjie went back and finished his bath. On that same trip, when I reached San Francisco, a friend of mine took me around to one of the clubs of which Sam Knight is a member, and there I heard of an experience of Sam's which was then fresh in the minds of San Franciscan society. It appears from the faithful narrative of an eyewitness that Sam was out near the Cliff House, sitting on the beach, gazing out across the surf, absorbed in thought. Suddenly he realized that seated near him was an attractive young lady, alone, as he was. A second glance showed she was extremely pretty, and that well-known courtesy of Sam's prompted the thought that it was his duty and his pleasure as well to enter into conversation. Just how to open the conversation he did not know. He noticed, however, that she was dressed in some sort of tennis or golf suit. So he turned pleasantly to her and inquired, "Are you fond of outdoor sports?" "Oh," she replied, "if they are not too old. Are you one?" There has been a good deal said about our congressman from California. I am sorry he has gone to Chicago. I am sorry for several reasons. You know above all things, Billy Kent is a friend of the People, the dear People. There is nothing so dear to Billy as the People, and the People must rule. Billy had not been long in Congress when there was a bill before the House for the admission of one of the territories as a state. The constitution had been framed and adopted and was before Congress for ratification and approval. One day Bill came into the House in the midst of debate on this bill. They were discussing a clause of the constitution which con- tained the proposed motto of the new state. The motto was, THE STORY OF THE REUNION 101 ARRIVAL OF THE TUTTLES "Under God the People Rule." Billy listened to the discussion for a moment,, read over the text of the motto,, and there instantly roused in him his lifelong desire to do something for the people. "Mr. Speaker," he shouted, "I move to amend the proposed motto, 'Under God the People Rule,' by striking out the word 'under' and substituting therefor the word 'by.' ' Now, fellows, it is too late for any serious talk from me. These anecdotes I have given you for what they may be worth. But there is one serious thought I would suggest, because it appeals to me more strongly each year. It is that the greatest lesson one learns here at Yale, the greatest thing which comes to a man from the spirit of a Yale education, is the inspiration to service and sacrifice. All around us, on the old Campus and the new, on build- ings of our own time and of today, we see memorials of men who have brought luster to their Alma Mater; men who have neither 102 THE QUARTER-CENTURY REUNION sought, nor sought to avoid the perilous duties and responsibilities which have thrust themselves upon them, who, without ambitious quest after opportunity have yet stood ready to respond, "I will," to the call to service and to sacrifice. These memorials bear no inscription which rings truer to Yale teaching and Yale tradition than that one over yonder in the memorial vestibule which bears the name of our classmate, Mike Meacham, for it bears no tribute to him as a soldier, though soldier he was. Upon it are no names of campaigns, nothing sug- gestive of the clash of arms, of triumph won or hardships endured, but just the simple words, "In honor of service and sacrifice." In those two words are expressed not only what was best and greatest in Mike Meacham, but as well, what is best and greatest in all that Yale gives to her sons in education and tradition. It has been my good fortune and privilege throughout the twenty- five years since we graduated to be thrown with Yale graduates more than with any other class of men. In professional life and in social life, I have been in daily contact with Yale men; and the truth of the statement that this is the greatest lesson taught here at Yale has been borne in upon me over and over again in my daily contact with Yale men of all classes. It is no boast for me to claim to know the Class of '87 better than any one of you. Each of you knows some one in the Class better and more intimately than I do, but none of you know the Class as a whole so well. It is inevitable from my years as Class Secretary. As I look over the Class as a whole, it is not mere loyalty which makes me believe that the men of '87 are leveling up to the standard set by the classes which have gone before and are following after us. I believe there is no class which, in the same number of years, has set a higher standard in the matter of useful achievement and accomplishment. So I have but those two serious thoughts to leave with you tonight as we close this twenty-five year banquet the thought that all Yale's teaching and tradition both in college and after for her teaching and tradition are potent throughout our lives puts the emphasis on those two words, "service and sacrifice" ; and that our good old Class, just now passing the meridian, is holding the banner which bears these words up to the level which is expected of her. THE STORY OF THE REUNION 103 [At this point, Sam Knight, speaking for the '87 men living on the Pacific coast, briefly referred to the Exposition to be held in San Francisco in 1915, and to the desire of the Calif ornian mem- bers that some reunion of the Class should be held there at that time. A motion to this effect was made and duly and unanimously carried with enthusiasm.] The T oastmaster : Scranton is a red-hot Yale town and has sent many good specimens to Yale. They all go back to Scranton if they can, and we like to exhibit them as Yale representatives. The highest stand man in the Class, Billy Hand, came to us from Scranton; so did dear old Stuffy; so did Jim Archbald. Jim was president of the baseball association in the good days when the nine had the winning habit; they got it from our Sunny Jim, who has the winning smile. Jim, will you recite? James Archbald, Jr.: "Recite" is an apt word in my case, because all the time I have been sitting here waiting to be called on, I have felt as I used to when only partially prepared for a recitation in Latin or Greek, anxious to be called up early in the game, and feverishly trying to read ahead at sight. When Eddie Burke and I looked over the list of speakers tonight, we felt it was a low trick on us and showed poor judgment on the part of the committee to place us after such speakers as Fred Hill and Sheffield. I congratulated myself, however, on being ahead of Burke. When I have to make a speech it is like that old but most apropos of all stories which I first heard attributed to George Woodward's father, though it certainly did not apply to him. I am like the man who had to ride with his mother-in-law at his wife's funeral, and it "spoiled the whole blamed thing for him." So here I was, anxious to get my speech off my mind, and then there came in ahead of me the pictures of ourselves, which we all enjoyed, after that the presentation of the cups, and when my turn at last came, Billy overlooked me, as I wish you had let him do entirely. When Fred Chase wrote me in a very tentative way that the committee might want me to make a few well-chosen remarks at 106 THE QUARTER-CENTURY REUNION reading, and if there were more like it, I would subscribe for the Congressional Record. Let me read you some poetry from it. Billy does not imply that he wrote it, but he might have. I read these tariff speeches o'er, The more I read of them the more I do not know, but then I can Rely upon our Congressman. Upon the very slightest hint He puts a red-hot speech in print And when he prints that speech, you see, He has it mailed out here to me- Mac makes it very clear just how If I pay more than I do now For socks and gloves and baby's dress While I pay more they cost me less. And then he shows me where I lose By paying somewhat less for shoes, For though I pay less than before, My shoes, they really cost me more. He makes it very clear to me That what I lose I gain, you see; And on such things as clothes and shoes I seem to gain but really lose. Thus, if I buy my socks too low, They'll still be higher Dune says so And shoes I thought were high last fall Were really low shoes after all. Mac says if I pay less for shoes Or hats, the maker has to lose. And if he loses, then, you see, He charges up the loss to me. Now, when I have to pay him more, He reckons profits to his store, And Duncan finds a share for me In all of this prosperity. The speeches shed a radiant light Upon the theme and make it bright; I merely read them o'er and o'er To find more's less and less is more. In buying hat, or coat, or vest, Dear's cheap, and cheap is dear, at best; High's low, low's high, far's near, near's far, White's black, black's white and there you are. THE STORY OF THE REUNION 107 We live in topsy-turvy land When McKinley waves his magic wand. As to Billy Phelps, have you read the "Heart of Peter Burn- ham," by Ralph Paine? It is poorly written and its few refer- ences to our popular professor of English literature do not do justice to what we have heard as to his real charm for the under- graduates and the ladies, as with the latter in this story he only comes in a poor second to the hero. Naturally, in thinking of our achievers, my mind runs on our literary men, perhaps because we value most success in other lines than our own, and that leads me to speak of Billy Mac and his work. Do you know that wherever he has been stationed, in Beth- lehem, Allentown, and now in Reading, he not only maintains a newspaper of a high tone such as is rarely, if ever, met with, but has done a most efficient work for boys, especially effective because he absolutely effaces himself in it, and leads the boys to work out their own physical, mental, moral and religious salvation? This is his daily as well as his life-work, and you cannot draw him from it at any hour it may need him. I know, for I have often tried. It seems to me our literary men were all born, not made or even trained by Yale, which is perhaps why we are long in this respect in quality, rather than quantity. Billy Kent, Billy Phelps and Fred Hill, did they get much of their training in those lines from Yale? Not so we knew it at the time. They made themselves. I remember when Billy Phelps first burst on us at a Yale dinner in New York, we did not know what to make of him. I am not sure we do yet. Seriously, though, I have always felt defrauded of two things in my college course, which I did not miss then compulsory literary training and compulsory gymnastic work. I have appreciated the latter more in the last few years, since I have been under a com- petent gym instructor in the Y. M. C. A. at home. It was rather a coincidence, that being asked a few months ago to present the prizes at a Y. M. C. A. athletic meet, I spoke of these lacks in my training, and after the meet, mentioned to someone the fact that I only took three books out of the library in all my college course, and those were used to furnish material for the only three compo- sitions I was compelled to write. The coincidence lies in the fact 108 THE QUARTER-CENTURY REUNION that the next day I received the Alumni Weekly of March 29, 1912, in which Billy Phelps descanted on the lack of appreciation of our library opportunities among his benighted classmates. I sup- pose now the same comparison may be made in this respect as was made by my brother in '96, when being asked to speak for Yale at a meeting on the Day of Prayer for Colleges, I asked him for some information as to the religious atmosphere at Yale, and he said, "Depict it as different from what it was in your day as you can." From what I knew of conditions at the time and remem- bered of those of my day, I thought he was right. However, if we weren't much on faith, we kept our end up on works, and what we lacked in form we made up in matter, without attempting to splurge. We have made no large gifts to the Alumni Fund, but we keep plugging away each year, and our total is, I think, greater than any class not having made a special reunion contribution. If, however, I feel the lack of a training in certain lines, as probably most of you do, I got my full money's worth in others. Yale was perhaps a hard school in some respects, but its competi- tion fits one well for the struggle of life. In my own case, I got a splendid business training here, so much so that in a business way I had as much confidence in myself when I graduated as I have now, which perhaps isn't saying much. I feel no more mature now than I did then, though when I look in my glass and at my grad- uating picture, I realize that I look more mature, even with my hat on. This training was extra-curriculum, but from the curric- ulum those of us who studied more or less, and most of us did more, rather than less, got a training in systematic and persistent hard work that has stood us in good stead, I am sure. Anyway, it has me. I remember some years ago, Mr. Simms, superintendent of motive power for the Pennsylvania Railroad said he would rather have a man who had the training in hard work denoted by the mastery of some subject that did not appeal to him, as for instance a Greek Lexicon, than one who had made a brilliant success in an interest- ing optional, and that is why a Phi Beta Kappa key is generally recognized as a strong recommendation in an applicant for work. You know he worked once and probably will again. If I remember rightly, Professor Perrin of Yale said, "It is a question whether instead of finding out what a boy likes and letting him study it, it THE STORY OF THE REUNION 109 is not better to find out what he does not like and make him study that." Moreover,, if Yale did not teach us everything, it taught us how to go after what we needed to know, and incidentally inculcated a confidence in ourselves based on the principle which I believe generally holds good, that a man can do anything if he brings to it reasonable intelligence and works hard. While I am called a "mining engineer," I always say it is by trade and not by profes- sion; and with no technical training whatever, I have found out that the best way to learn to do things is by doing them. More- over, a classical education and the old system of recitations ought to enable us to dress up what knowledge and ideas we have, so as to make the most of them, and I think we have all found out that if we have anything to say, Yale has taught us to say it, and perhaps also the corollary of this proposition, which may be quite as valuable from the standpoint of others, when we have nothing to say, not to say it. If I have seemed not to have learned or at least applied this last, you must blame the committee who forced me on you. We also know now the truth of Tiggy's expression, quoted before, which I translate into, "Mean what you say and say it clearly," without which there can be no convincing eloquence and no con- vincing literature. In conclusion,, I can say with absolute sincerity, as I hope you all can, that Yale taught me nothing I needed to unlearn. coi rO/occ-' fl g si i !.=: "' - 8? > !> 0) O 03