Hamilton College - Hamiltonian Yearbook (Clinton, NY)

Page 16 text:

IO THE HAZIIILTONIAN C C - h hell- we have the kernel. of Greece here. they h2lVC'f CS . , . . . The meat was indeed sweet and nourishing from the lips of 'four Greek. ' d love the Greek who still had to stumble He ma e men H along with grammar and leXicon. Men caught the sense of h b d of truth ' they had the taste trained for sim- form ast e o y , I , ple and pure joys, the spiritual element of life. They got of the joy of life and the beauty of the world. a new sense . Many a man dates a new mental era from a term with Theocritus or Aeschylus. Dr. North loved the College and the Hill with a love that never grew cold. He sent his roots deep into the soil of place, as he knew that the best life could only be f ' ' f H il- nourished by permanent relations. His love or am ton was not an exclusive and selfish possession. He was . . . . . . . . ther wide and magnanimous in his interests, rejoicing in o colleges, especially the new institutions where his own sons were giving their best life. But as for himself, he simply loved Hamilton. He -could be happy nowhere else. He never sought with a veiled self-seeking for larger spheres ' of influence. And as the College grew and made history, and became associated not only with this life but with a fairer world, his life became deeply connected with every- thing on the Hill. lt is no wonder that to him there was a pathos in the cutting of a-shrub or the trimming of a tree. Dr. North was a man of sentiment and association, but deeper than this, of genuine human interests. He had Arnold's love for even the dull students. l doubt whether any dullness ever tempted him into impatience. He saw something in the poorest and weakest man and believed in it. It was marvelous what ignorance and stupidity he would coax along. The current rumor that more than one man had entered College who learned his Greek alpha-

Page 15 text:

L. N J 9 v 1 Q i i ll J- vi 3 HAJIIIL TON COLLEGE ' 9 imufessur Qliuiuarh gwurtb. 5L.ZEa.E. P11oF. ARTHUR s. HovT, D. D., ,72. R. NORTH is notable for his length of service as a Professor of Greek. Sixty years have probably not been equalled by any other American Pro- .,a.aaa.:, f .. . I hi - essoi. n t is respect he outstrips the great names associated with the language in this coun- try, Tyler and Felton, Harkness and Hadley and Taylor. There must' be a peculiar preserving quality in Attic salts, for all these men were rich and individual, kept pure and sweet through generations of students without being dried. But it is not the quantity but the quality of service that made Edward North so dear to the sons of Hamilton. He was the interpreter of Greek thought and life. He gave us the literature of power. Above everything else he was a hzmzfz7zz'.rf.- it was life that he loved and taught his classes. His own training had been received before the era of the specialist, and the conquest of lan- guage-teaching by the philologist. But the minutest scientific drill could not have dulled the poet's love and vision. tl do not know whether he was a scientific eXpert in the Greek language. At least he did not care to write a grammar or give learned disquisitions upon particles. But I do know that he had imbibed the Greek love of life and beauty, he lived in the Greek thought, and had his golden dreams, and renewed the lost ages, and glorified all with the light of the Divine Humanist, and gave a finer spirit to the pushing, peering, questioning soul of this western world. He said to a company of students that welcomed him on his return from a year in Athens: We have the best

Page 17 text:

HAMILTON COLLEGE II bet en route was only the exaggeration of the fact that he gave every man a chance, and some of the poorest men have wonderfully justiiied his faith. And then he followed his students through life. He never lost sight of them, and he was always looking out for them. He was a Teachers' Bureau in himself. Some of the men would hardly have recognized themselves in his recommendations, and sometimes it was the revelation of a nobler self that gave birth to a great ambition. Dr. North was never so happy as in getting a word from his students, or in meeting them. He remembered the most minute things concerning them and rejoiced in their suc- cess. There is no record in a college journal equal to the Alumniana of the Hd77ZZ-ff07Z Lit., which he edited for so many years. ' V And so to many minds Edward North has stood for Hamilton College, its finest culture and best traditions. No doubt we have idealized him, but it is the reaching out of the soul for the noble qualities that he represented. It should not be laid up against us that the Hill is not quite the same place since Edward North has gone.