Report of the trigintennial meeting with a biographical and statistical record online

Brooklyn, and is one of the University Extension lecturers. He has done as
much, if not more, than anyone in the United States to raise the standard of art in
the localities in which he has spoken, and we shall deem it an honor and a pleasure
to listen to him to-night.

Mr. Goodyear : — I thank you for your very kind expression. One thing has struck me
in listening to your speeches to-night. I have no doubt that you will all agree with me in
feeling that Yale owes a great deal to the beauty of the town in which she is, and we ought
not to forget New Haven in remembering other things. Those of you who have traveled

45



furthest will bear me witness that there is no town in either hemisphere which possesses its
peculiar charm and beauty. There certainly is no town in the world quite so beautiful as
the town in which we are, and I think we should consider that and pay tribute to it, and the
beauty of the place comes back to me, and I feel it as I always did. I have always said it
is the most beautiful town in the world, and I say it now, and I am sure jou will all agree
with me. One point was brought up to-night in which we have found a difference of
opinion. I will say, however, that my sympathies are very much with Dr. Mann in what
he has said about the preservation of one of the old college buildings, and not so much on
the ground of sentiment or association. No doubt, as Dr. Alison has said, the buildings
which are now existing will have as fond associations in a few years, and may have
them already. I think we should recognize the fact, however, that there has been no very
distinct advance in the art atmosphere over the old buildings which they will replace. The
old buildings arc extremely good art ; they are good color and unpretentious, and I think
from the standpoint of artistic beauty that we should be glad to have one of the old buildings
preserved, and from the standpoint of historical association and the history of the University
it scenes to be very desirable. I am not at all clear as to the addition to the appearance of the
campus from the new buildings. My opinion is that the old buildings added more to the
ensemble than the new buildings. I have to say about my studies that they have related very
close to university life. Although I have been quoted as a student in art I should like to
correct you by saying that I am also a student of general history. It is a study which has
grown very rapidly in this country during the past twenty-five years. I think it would be
well that the sentiment of the class should make itself felt to some extent with regard to the
position held by certain members of it, and I am thinking now of Mr. Eddy, mentioned by
Mr. Bissell — a gentleman who has a world famous standing in mathematics which has not
been recognized by this university. I think it would be well if, in a friendly way, the in-
fluence of the class be brought to bear on the degrees which are handed out to various gentle-
men, that Mr. Eddy and more of you here should not be forgotten. Nothing has been said
about the reputation of the class in music. You all know the genius of Dr. Goodman in that
matter. You may not know that a song which is being sung in a room below us was com-
posed by Dr. Goodman, and that this song is becoming popular in Yale College. I am sorry
(hat Mr. Elliot is not here to-night. We ought not to forget music. More than that. I ought
not to omit that among the men here no one is of greater utility than Mr. Morse. It is be-
coming in me, perhaps, to say how much I value the work which he has done; we have al-
ready expressed that as a whole, but I want to express myself individually to him and to Mr.
Adee. and Mr. Davenport, who has given us such a good dinner. I thank you very much
for your attention.

Mr. Fl.vxders : — The City of Philadelphia has heen for a great many years
one of the provinces from which Yale has drawn a large number of its students.
In that city we have a classmate of whom we have read ; those of us who are fa-

46



miliar with the "Alumni Weekly" have known that he has been successively the
Vice-President and lately the President of the Yale Alumni Association of Phila-
delphia. 1 refer to our classmate Ingham.

Mr. Ingham : — Mr. President, your expressions are exceedingly kind, but I think at
this late hour somewhat unnecessary. I have listened to speeches which have been made in
which there has been more or less similarity, in that they have all tended to show the suc-
cess with which you have met the labors of life, a good deal like a clergyman — one of our
colored brethren — who upon one occasion was addressing his congregation, and he took for
his text the prophet Jonah. He described the life at Nineveh, and said that the citizeni- had
soured very much upon the prophet and wanted to get him out of town, and they put him
upon a ship, and after he had been on the ship a little while a great storm arose, and they
thought it was better to pitch somebody overboard as a sacrifice, and they pitched over
Jonah, and immediately a great fish arose and swallowed Jonah. "Now, brethren, was that
a shark? No, not a shark. Was it a porgie? No, not a porgie." A woman in the back
part of the audience, thinking he wanted some assistance, said: "Oh, no; a whale." "Damn
you," said the preacher, "for taking the word of the Lord out of my mouth." I think that
practically you have taken my words out of my mouth. The remark made by our President
with reference to our four years here has given me a thought ; he spoke of them as being years
of contest, but perhaps productive of the greatest good that we have ever known. I think per-
haps no one of us here would claim that those four years were the happiest we spent, and if
happiness in life is the summum bonum, I think we have got to look later on. During the four
j'ears that we passed we were so young that it had few if any regrets, and the future was
bright because we knew nothing about it; but since we have got on in life we realize the fact
that the acceptance of responsibilities and the fulfillment of them by which we developed the
best that is in us, and do the most for our fellow man, is that which gives us the greatest hap-
piness. I think it is the current feeling that if we could live our lives over again that we could
do very much better than we have done. I feel that is my case, and as I look forward to life
I feel that my ambitions have grown somewhat gray with my hair. I have gone very largely
into interests which are outside of my business, which I told you a few years ago was not the
vocation in life which I would have picked out if I could have changed it. Morse asked me
to detail whether I had been the recipient of any honors. 1 replied that perhaps I had
received more than I deserved. My fellow citizens, I am glad to say, have been exceedingly
kind to me. I have been placed upon a great many boards — boards of business, boards ec-
clesiastical, boards humanitarian — and I think that one of the greatest honors that I have
received is that the Alumni Association has made me its President, and in that position I
hope to be able to do more for Yale in a direct way than I have done here. We live in an
atmosphere antagonistic to Yale: the citizens of Philadelphia send their sons to the Univer-
sity of Pennsylvania by scores. It has been a great pleasure to me that I have been able to
arrest one son of a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, and he is coming to Yale.

47



Another one, a graduate of another institution, is also coming here under my auspices. I
have sent one boy here who graduates to-morrow. God wilHng, I shall send another one
here two years hence. (Voice: "When are you going to stop, Bill?") I hope that it will be
my lot. Bob. to see my grandsons here (cries of "Good!"'), and that the grandsons of Bill,
as I have been so kindlj' called, will matriculate here with the grandsons of 1867, and that
the great grandsons of '67 will mingle here until '67 passes to the great beyond. (Applause.)

jMr. Morse: — It has always been customary at a meeting of this kind to
select one of our number to represent us at the Alumni dinner, and 1 take great
pleasure in nominating Mr. Showalter to represent us.

Motion seconded and carried unanimously.

Mr. Morse : — At all thirtieth reunions it is customary for those who repre-
sent us at Alumni meetings to sit on the stage with President Dwight.

Mr. Fl.anders: — We have another classinate here, a gentleman from the
State of Indiana, whose son graduates to-morrow, and I am sure we all wish to
hear from a loyal son of Yale, father of another loyal son of Yale. We will now
listen to Mr. Parke.

Mr. Parke : — In this case I will have to plead guilty of disregard for the ties and affec-
tions formed in College. I have stayed away. I have not been here for thirty years, until
several letters from Mr. Morse asked me to come, together with the fact that I have a son
graduating here to-morrow, and he thought it a shame that I did not come here at least once
in thirty years. We all appreciate the value of education, even if not educated. I know an
old Dutch farmer who thought that education was a good thing, and he sent his son to Col-
lege, and after he had been gone for two or three 3'ears he came back to the farm. He
sent the boy to town with a wagon and the boy let the team run away, doing serious dam-
age. The boy. however, escaped. The old man was recounting it to me and said: "1 tell you,
Mr. Parke, I spent a heap of money getting that boy educated, and the little fool let my
mules run away." His idea of practical education had not been met by sending him to that
College. I told him he ought to have sent him to Harvard. I told him that if he had sent
him to Harvard he would have found something which would have suited his ideas of a lib-
eral education. Now. with regard to South Middle, I would like to see that old thing stand.
I think it is pretty. Our ideas of architecture come altogether from history and
association. There Is hardly anything really beautiful in architecture; it comes altogether
from history and from forms that associate themselves in our minds. Now. in that way I
think that that old South Middle is very pretty, and, so far as destroying the general plan of
the quadrangle, it is so situated upon the corner that when the other old buildings are torn
away there will be a sufficient field that it will not interfere much with it. Well, I am glad



that Mr. Morse persuaded me to come here. I see very few here I know, for I was in 1866
a few years. Well, it is getting late, and we are going to have some more speeches. I am
glad to be here, and I hope I shall be with you all five years from now.

Mr. Flanders : — '67, gentlemen, has also provided professors for other Uni-
versities, and Professor Perkins, of the University of Vermont, is here to-night.

Prof. Geo. H. Perkins : — I have attended but one of the amiiversaries — the twenty-
fifth — and I want to say now what I did not say then, that I did not attend the previous anni-
versaries because of any thoughtlessness, or lack of attention, but because I simpiy could not ;
but I determined at the last anniversary that I would not let another go by. I think I can-
not be accused of speaking too extravagantly when I say that the meeting five years ago
marks an epoch in my life. My love for the members of the Class has been stronger and
deeper than it would have been if I had not attended that gathering. It was my misfortune
that 1 was associated with the Clas§ comparatively little, and for that reason I am the more
grateful to you for the very cordial welcome you have always given me. Unlike many of
you. perhaps, my life has been spent in College circles, and the longer I am in such circles
the more I feel the importance of th'e association of such a Class as this. I have done nothing
great, but simply the best I could to help those with whom I had to do to true manhood.
The inspiration has come largely from this class; the idea of manliness and true democratic
manliness, the idea of true earnestness in this life, have come to me very largely from this
Class, unconsciously, perhaps, but they nevertheless have come to me, and 1 shall always be
thankful for the influence which this class has brought to bear upon my life. I wish my
life had been more useful than it has been, but so far as it has been useful and successful
one great element in that usefulness and success has come to me from this Class, and I feel
that I should not be true to myself and what I have accomplished did not I make this ac-
knowledgment of what you have done for me. I have been almost surprised to find how
my heart went out to one and all of you when I came here. Certainly I am thankful that I can
call j'ou men of '67 brethren, and that you are willing to call me one of yotir brethren. As I
look out from my window in Burlington over the lake. I see many wonderful sunsets; I can-
not describe them, but I have often thought that the clouds, if we could see them closely, are
simpl}^ dull gray mists and the mountains simply gray rocks — the beauty comes from some-
where else. And so it is with us ; the influences that come from such a company as this that
makes up this Cla=s shine upon our lives and brighten them, and if through the compound in-
fluence of each of us we would recollect each of us the beauty and helpfulness that comes
from us all, the world will be better, not only because we have lived, but because you and T
have been brothers together here at Yale in this Class of '67. (Applause.)

Mr. Fl.\nder.s : — Gentlemen, we all subscribe most heartily to what we heard
said of George Adee in the room above its. He has made one first-class speech,

49



but he is chock full of a lot more, and we now call upon him to give us another,
and I would say that as it is sometimes the custom and habit to give out a text, i
will give him a text to explain how it was we were beaten at Poughkeepsie.

Mr. Adee: — While oratory is not my forte, the explanation of the defeat at Poughkeep-
sie is easy ; we did not row fast enough. I want to say a word about this Yale spirit that we
have all talked about. It seems to me that it has practical results. Our individual effort,
our organized collective effort, combined with the highest motives, under the best instructors,
and with the loftiest aims, under a democracy — the democracy of Yale — such as exists in
no such perfection anywhere else in the world, combined with this Yale spirit, have pro-
duced the fruits of success and distinction that so many of the Class of '67 have obtained in
the pulpit, at the bar, in medicine and in business, and the general standard of usefulness and
success which all the rest of the Class seems to me to have earned. It looks very much as if
the Class of '67. in the estimation of our faculty and graduates, already stands second to the
great and celebrated Class of '53, which has hitherto been supposed to contain more distin-
guished men than any Class which ever graduated here. Now, from being a close second, we
are sure to be first — first because the Class of '53 has already been forty-four years out of Col-
lege, and its surviving members must be getting too old to do much more in this world, while
the distinguished men of '67 will go on increasing their distinction, and the rest of us
will do the best we can. It seems to me that we can do a very graceful act, and I hereby
make a motion that our Secretary be instructed to circulate a petition throughout the class
during the current year to give Jim Wadsworth an honorary degree. He is a' son of a dis-
tinguished man. Jim and his brother served with credit in the army, Jim himself being on
Gen. Warren's staff. He then came to Yale, and I think was in Yale for about two years.
He did not work much harder than anybody else did, but he has done well since, and I am
told on very good authority that he came within an ace of being nominated for Governor
v.ithin the past two or three years. What further thing I have to say is that we ought all to
keep in touch with the University all the time, and if we take the "Yale Alumni Weekly"
we will keep in touch with the College. (Applause.)

Mr. Bruce: — I desire to second the motion of Mr. Adee with reference to
Mr. Wadsworth.

Carried unanimously.

Mr. Flanders : — One other classmate of ours is a Professor in another in-
stitution of learning, and he has, in addition to many other distinctions, one which I
think none of us has had or can make claim to, and one that perhaps no other
Yale graduate can make claim to. I speak now of Professor Walker, whose son
graduated at Amherst and took a post-graduate course at Yale, taking the degree

SO



of Dr. of Philosophy at the age of twenty-two, being the youngest recipient of that
degree in the history of Yale.

Prof. Walker: — We have heard a great deal about the progression of Yale. There is a
query in my mind, suggested by the events of the evening, as to whether the citizens of the
city have kept up with the procession, or whether it is that there might not be at least
some of them who are guilty of a little retrogression. For instance. Brother Wild assigned
me and my wife to one of the houses on Elm street; the landlady received us very kindly,
and it occurred to me that perhaps I should not be home to-night by 12 o'clock, and I asked
her to give me a night key to the front door. She said she had none, but the gentleman at the
head of the table loaned me his. but he suggested that I had better examine the door to find
out where the keyhole was. "Is there anything odd about the keyhole of the house?" I asked.
The landlady also followed me to the door and asked me if I had any matches. I told her
I was not a smoker, but I believed in letting my light shine. She said .she would let the gas
burn, and asked me to turn it out. Now, is there anything peculiar about the keyholes of
the houses in New Haven which cannot be remedied? If so, we should have some investi-
gation made to see if these evils cannot be remedied in some way. I find that there has been
progression in the University, yet I find that the old atmosphere is still here. A few years
ago I brought down my boy, some eighteen years of age, from our agricultural farm in Am-
herst, and he had not been in New Haven more than ten minutes before he got the Yale
fever, and he believed that, although Amherst was the most lovely spot, so far as nature had
done its work, that yet there was a spirit about Yale that was the spirit for him, so nothing
would satisfy him but to come down here to find out what could be learned at New Haven,
and so for three years he has been studying at Yale, and will take his degree of Doctor of
Philosophy to-morrow, and I believe he is going to remain and teach the Yale Juniors next
year, as an assistant in Prof. Boucher's department. What are the elements in the atmos-
phere of Yale which produce men like '67! What are some of the causes of the success of
our Class? Now, I am an Ohio man. I was born in Cincinnati, and I was crazy for an edu-
cation. I went into the army and took my Freshman year there. I went to Marietta College
in Ohio, and Prof. Andrews examined me for the Freshman Class, and he said I could not
go into the Freshman Class, but could go to the Sophomore Class. I remained there for a
year, but, on thinking it over, decided I wanted to go to the best college there was, and I
heard about Yale. I looked over the catalogue and said that Yale was the place for me, and
next year I started for New Haven, a thousand miles East. On the morning of my arrival
I looked out of my windows in the New Haven House, and said to my chum : "What are
those long rows of factories over there?" '"Why," he said, "that is Yale College." I found
indeed it was a factory, but a factory where they produced men, and for men there is the
greatest demand in all the world, and the demand will never exceed the supply. One thing I
learned in Yale that has gone with me all through my life — to divide all things mto two
classes; first the essentials, and .secondly the non-essentials. I find that the essentials are

51



comparatively few and the non-essentials many. So I have determined all through life to
get hold of the essentials, and if I have obtained any success whatever it is through seizing
on essentials. Another thing I have found out, that one of the most essential things in the
world is manhood. Now, some reference has been made to South Middle College. It seems to
me that it ought to remain for many reasons, and especially for this reason — to show that
in the gaining of education brick and mortar, stone and architectural adornment, however con-
venient, however beautiful, are not essential, because out of those old brick dormitories, in their
unsatisfactor}' condition, there went out a race of men who have made the law, who have
preached the gospel, who have practiced medicine, who have planted this great territory of ours
with institutions from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and who have that most essential thing, man-
hood. Architecture is good, but architecture will not make a university, so, unless we have
men, why all the luxury which may come to us will only be a curse instead of a blessing. It is
with the greatest pleasure that I come here to-night, because I find this same old atmos-
phere, the same men who came here full of the effervescence of boyishness more than thirty
years ago. And so the Class of '67 has gone out and made its mark through this land of
ours. Why has this class of ours succeeded so eminently? When I first went out of this
College they asked me what Class I belonged to. I said '67. When we were boys was the
beginning of the war. We did not play with those white balls which bound over the village
green, but the contest was with cannon balls, and the blood which was shed was not the mere
wound in the scrimmage, but it was the heart's blood of the nation. Now, those of us who
went through that self-sacrifice were inculcated with a love of country and a love of man-
hood which followed us through these years in College, and which we cannot shake off if we
will, and this is the cause of our success. I think this Class of '67 will hand down its spirit
to its sons and grandsons. (Applause.)

Mr. Fl.\nders: — When I saw the first catalogue that was published, and
read the name Caspar Shrom Bigler, I was satisfied that the possessor of that
name was unique, and my subsequent acquaintance with him has convinced me
that my judgment was correct, and I am told that in the City of Harrisburg and
State of Pennsylvania he has made an indelible impression.

Mr. Bigler: — Mr. Chairman, to-day you have had no fly in your ointment. I am per-
haps not more than thirty minutes older than I was when Tom Hedge called me a liar, and
as I looked around on the array of witnesses he might call, I pocketed my dignity, and that
is saying a good deal for me. too. As the various speeches were uttered, I picked up a point
here and there which I disagreed with. Tom said one good thing when he referred to
Spencer. I am in thorough sympathy with everything he has said about Spencer. His high
and noble and gentlemanly life and character will do much. As to the old college buildings.
I am decidedly in favor of the living, and of letting them do whatever they please. It is a

52



pretty difficult thing to address a class meeting after thirty years. You do not know what to
say. Paul said that the greatest of all virtues was charity, and he was wrong. There is an-
other virtue, far greater than that, that he never dreamed of, and that is justice. With
justice in this world we would not have to die to .see the New Jerusalem; it would be es-
tablished here. With justice, Mr. Chairman, there would have been no need to take up a col-
lection to feed 500,000 of the very poor of London. That is a fact, I think, that has never
struck us, and that is a fact that has worried me a good deal, because I have had a pleasant
life. I will recite a piece of poetry by Francis Brown (recites it). It might be that when
we speak of the atmosphere of Yale we should let our thoughts go out a little further, and
think of those who never come within the shadow of that atmosphere.

Mr. Flanders : — We are all of us sorry that Dunning is not present to-night,
having sailed for Europe a few weeks ago, but another classmate of ours from
Boston, a partner of Dunning's, a representative both of the clerical and of the edi-
torial profession, and the head and manager and joint proprietor with Dunning