University of Santa Clara - Redwood Yearbook (Santa Clara, CA)

Page 32 text:

i6 THE REDWOOD. Rest on, ye hallowed dead ! t hough tears few fall Today, recalling self-forgetting toil. Still History proudly holds your deeds to all, And keeps your memory rooted in our soil. Ye came from far, from loved ones, native land. Saint Francis ' heroes reared in cot and hall — Not Argonantic questing; golden sands Did not seduce your weary feet. From thrall Of Satandom to free the West ye marched. Urged by the dauntless Serra. The Greek youth Did not more crave for worlds, than ye the parched Domains of hell-endangered souls; forsooth Columbus not more ardent sought to find The Undiscovered. Unus sufficit Non orbis, was your cry, and like the fearless wind Ye bore upon Satanic hosts. Clouds lit With nothing carnal fired; no cannon roared. Nor streams were crimsoned by the tide of blood. Ye used not Death: the demons ' hydra hood Was conquered by the axe of Right and Good. The Gordian knot of sin was severed; ye won A twofold victory for Soul and State; But torn were ye from work so well begun. And scattered through the world superb, ingrate. Surviving comrades none alas, are there To vigil keep, save Cypress, drear and green; As wailing winds disturb the stilly air. In sorrow bow their tops, and wide careen, Answering back Pacific as it sings A dirge in deep-voiced, thundrous waves. Resounding from its age-worn cliffs, and rings The De Profundis o ' er the silent graves. John Riordan ' 05.

Page 31 text:

THE REDWOOD. 15 From its cerulean waste, and here the stream Flows indolent. O golden, busy age! The opened path fortells a greater West, And progeny sprung from the land presage A race tried as the Builders and as blest. As darkness growing all the mountain clouds, The Indians gather their evening prayer. And Vespers sung, depart. Then night enshrouds; Loud barks the slim coyote from his lair, And bleat the flocks from out the distant hills, Where tinkling bells grow fainter and then fail; And rustling mighty by the murmuring rills The giant Sequoias break the rising gale: Afar the hoot of owl strikes on the air And the low rumble of the laboring deep; The flickering lights go out and free of care The land aweary sinks to sleep. The sun still shines — but on another scene. The West grown mightier than the dream, With cities great is spread; on the dark green Expanse of ocean merchants ply; the stream Is harnessed; giant factories rend The purple with their darkling cloud; And now the hurrying locomotives blend Their shrieks with sylvan songsters, where have bowed The woods neath blade of Progress. E ' en the walls Of Missions have since crumbled, and the brave Bold Builders of the West lie still, and crawls The eglantine and ivy o ' er each grave.

Page 33 text:

THE REDWOOD. 17 COLLEGE IDEALS AND PUBLIC LIFE. Response to the toast College Ideals and Public Life at the Alumni banquet, May 28, 1903. Mr. President, Gentlemen, and I may now say, in view of the honor which the Faculty has conferred on me to-day, and for which I am duly appreciative and grateful, Fellow Collegians: I have just returned from a visit to the Yosemite Valley, the great wonderland of California, impressed by its beauty and magnificence. There, perpendicular walls of granite rise 4,000 feet above the floor of the valley, which is itself 4,000 feet above the sea. Great cateracts leap from these dizzy heights and great trees display their variegated verdure and the rivers course through the meadow-lands, taking their source from the eternal snows. And yet, side by side with all this beauty and magnifi- cence, there grew up a race, the Digger Indian of California, of which many still survive, of inferior human beings so low in the scale of humanity that Sir John Lubbock said, I am informed, (but as yet I have not confirmed his statement), that they are among the most degraded of all aboriginal people and are the only race that had no conception of God. But some wag, who was present at a discussion between ecclesiastics on the subject of original sin, ob- served, What is the use of quarreling about original sin when there is so much copy? So, we may say, what is the use of dis- cussing the savages of the woods when there are so many barbar- ians of the cities ? It is hopeless to deal with aborigines, but their un progressive character may point our moral. We are con- cerned in the education of metropolitan barbarians. The condi- tion of the Digger Indian would lead us to conclude that environ- ment, of which so much is expected, can not accomplish anything without the initiative of education; that man must be taught the principles of art and science to enjoy and profit by the wonderful works of Nature, and that wh en such knowledge is acquired, then the mountain and the valley, the river and the forest unfold their story to the inquisitive mind. It has been wisely said, therefore,