New York University School of Commerce - Commerce Violet Yearbook (New York, NY)

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With the usual adaptability of the Yankee boy, Professor Sprague became suc- cessively, art director in an advertising agency, conductor of a studio, a teacher in the High School of Commerce of New York, and instructor in New York University. To add further variety he took an occasional trip abroad, the first time acting as one of the grooms for a ship-load of cows. One year was spent on the Pacific coast, which brought the usual enthusiasm for the West's limpid atmosphere, blue skies, and the well-known 'Lgreat open spaces. An influential part of his philosophy of life came from two garbled bon mots of wisdom: An honest man gathers no moss, and a rolling stone is the noblest work of God. In the winter of 1921 Professor Sprague returned to New York University as a regular member of the statutory faculty. In addition to giving his courses on art at the University, he has delivered extramural lectures on art, on home decoration, and on antiques. He is frequently consulted on these subjects by such an institution as the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In his study of art, Professor Sprague has been abroad four times, the last trip being in 1924. He has studied in the principal art centers of France and Italy, and pondered the most typical architectural structures of Westerii Europe. The man who formulates a theory or discovers an abstruse principle but presents it in a form so involved that only the learned few can comprehend may perform a great service for humanity, but the one who is able to understand enigmatieal and inscrutable propositions and to translate them into workable formulae may perform an even greater public service than the discoverer. In fact, stepping down the erudition of thinkers to the understanding of the public makes up a large part of university instruction. Professor Sprague's most notable achievements have been of this nature. His strength lies in his ability to grasp fundamentals which have been laboriously wrought out but mystically and incomprehensively stated, and translate them into everyfday workable form. 7

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Clarence Hayes Sprague LARENCE HAYES SPRAGUE, Professor of Advertising at New York University, artist, lecturer, antiquarian, traveler, humorist, teacher. Men like him, women admire him, students love him. An inspiring subject for a dedicator! The orthodox biography begins at birth, but inasmuch as that occurred so long ago that Professor Sprague cannot remember any of the details, it will be sufficient to dismiss it with the statement that it occurred in the nineteenth century on Long Island some time between the equinoxes. Although he was the principal character in that momentous event, of all of the numerous interested dframatis personae he had the least to do with its arrangement or the developments which immediately followed. Like most Long Island boys, Professor Sprague entered the primary school at five, where he soon distinguished himself by an unusual ability for expression with voice, face, and hands---an ability which in later life contributed so much to his popularity as a teacher. Grammar school, high school, art school, and finally a course in New York Uni' versity, from which he was graduated in 1917, were the principal steps in his under' graduate academic training. They were uneventful, so far as published records show. Perhaps the fact that Professor Sprague had to finance himself limited somewhat his participation in those activities which students sometimes mistake for higher education. Whexi the state of his finances required that he do a job of lettering instead of particif pating in a swimming match, he consoled himself with Elbert Hubbard's philosophy of athletics, i. e., football' bears the same relation to physical training as bull fighting bears to agriculture, 4 6

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A specific example is the adaptation of the principles of art to display advertising. Professor Sprague was one of the first consciously to develop an art of layout from the principles of composition that have been garnered from the painters, architects, and sculptors whose works have become classic. Also he has pioneered in developing courses in layfout founded upon an intimate knowledge of the best art. Not only has this work been of value to practitioners, both layfout men and art directors, but Pro' fessor Sprague has been able to present it to his students so that they have caught the inspiration of art as well as acquired the technique of the worker. Professor Sprague's home is in Port Washiiigton, where with Mrs. Sprague he is bringing up two sons, Andrew and David, six and two respectively. It is too early to predict the future for youngsters of their ages, but from their ability to use scissors on their father's books and a paste pot on their mother's damask table linen, it looks as if they might have a bright and shining future either as artists or editors. The adaptation and utilization of the best that comes within one's purview is said to be essential to each of these avocations. ,The popularity of the man whom the Violet Board is honoring by this dedication is further attested by the recent vote of Commerce students for the most popular instructor. Professor Sprague was the only member of the faculty having attained full rank who received even as much as a nomination. 6