University of the South - Cap and Gown Yearbook (Sewanee, TN)

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22 lje ap anif (faarort. f hc t )0d x f iht ©lct$ tc + We, who are the aristocracy of intellect at the University, and have chosen that path up the hill of knowledge, which while it offers the most beautiful views, is at the same time the most rugged and dangerous, feeling that our experiences along that path may be of value to those who come after us, and of interest to all the rest, while our hearts yet swell with the climb- ing, our stone bruises smart, and our breath labours, pain would recount some of our adventures. These have been many and varied. When years ago — it must have been in the Silurian age, — we started out, it was with many wrong ideas. Thus we thought that sentences like the one which opens this article were inadmissible. But when we found in the model orations of Demosthenes sentences about an acre and a half in area, we changed our minds. We thought that Homer was a great poet ; we wept over the parting of Hector and Archomache, and felt our heart burn within us at the wrath of Achilles. We know better now. Homer was no poet, he was a gram-

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he ( ap attb (faoxvxx. 21 have had dyspepsia for a week, when ten days of November weather have been transported bodily into the middle of July, when you have stumbled over four several cows and eighteen several roots in endeavoring to reach your lodg- ings on a dark night, when you have gone to hear the bell ring itself hoarse because the Vice Chancellor has refused another call, when year by year you perceive that more scholarly work is being done in the several schools and that new departments are being added, when you find that neither absence nor years can dim the devotion of a single alumnus to his alma mater, when you see in your dreams the splendid group of Academic buildings completed, when to crown all you feel in your heart of hearts that your little mite of work is being done in God ' s service when it is being done for Sewanee, then you feel that the Sewanee spirit that has taken hold of you and will not let you go, is an inspiration and a joy forever — then you feel that not to appre- ciate that spirit is barely to be tolerated in a Philistine and to jest about it an offence that would be unpardonable in anyone save a Joco-SERiuS.

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(frjje ( ap anb (Matxtxt. 23 marian, and merely wrote to exemplify the use of ' t v a and ' «-«?. ' ' Burning Sappho, ' ' too, was not burning with poetic fire, she was ' ' inflamed with a desire to show the changes in dialect after Homer. Hesiod — well, confidentially, we never did think Hesiod was much of a poet, only we did not know exactly what to call him. But see the advantages of classical study ! we now know all about him, he was a puzzle maker, not the kind made of iron rings or the 15-14 one, but the kind that comes in the Youths ' Companion. His pages are a hunting ground for Parataxis. We shall never forget our bliss when we caught our first Parataxis. With heart swelling with the pride of a conqueror, we laid him at the professors ' feet, and were told that he was not the right kind. We were crest-fallen, but we shall always believe it was Hesiod ' s fault. If a man pretends to keep a Paxataxis park, he has no right to deceive strangers with a bogus one. Our classical training has given us a proper and due appreciation of the tragic poets. Formerly we never could understand why the Athenians should have given prizes for such grief as they wrote — manifested only in ' ' ee-ou ! ee-ou ! ' ' or ai, ai. But when we understand that they were writing text books, we became filled with the loftiest admiration of their genius. They had dis- covered the great secret how to make a small boy study grammer. With marvelous ingenuity they combined the grammer and the dime novel. By this master stroke the attention of the small boy was fixed and the various syntac- tical points which otherwise would have disgusted him became mere child ' s play. It is only of late years that we have discovered this — that we have learned that the Prometheus is a disquisition on causal clauses with the agony thrown in pour lagniappe, that Euripedes wrote to show that the potential optative could be used without ' av , and Sophocles, only wrote to exemplify certain other linguistic peculiarities. Philip of Macedon was one of the intimate friends of Demosthenes, and when the orator wanted to write something in order to crystalize the attic dia- lect he allowed the book to be dedicated to him . Hence the popular impression that Demosthenes wrote those harsh things against him. Ducian ' s contribu- tion is perhaps the most valuable, he wrote or compiled an encyclopaedia or a Moods and Tenses. The Gospels — The Gospels are of no importance, they are corrupt Greek.