Vanderbilt University - Commodore Yearbook (Nashville, TN)

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10 - THE COMETS- should reflect the healthy student sentiment, be a friend of the right, a foe to the wrong, opposing all narrow-minded policies, and at the same time seizing the good in all things. With this short salutatory, we deliver the third volume of The Comet to the good graces of the public. Though somewhat later than usual, this should not affect the patriotic desire in the breast of every Vanderbilt student to see it broadly distributed and widely read, not only that its financial success may be insured, but that it may add its little to the reputation and upbuilding of our Cniversity. If indulgent readers will only remember tin difficulties which it has been necessary to overcome, excuse the faults, and give due credit to the excellencies which The Comet may have, we shall feel well repaid.

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- i THE COMETS 9 S btlTATOftY 1 f POli the third time Tun Comet is seen above the horizon ol the literary firmament of Vanderbilt Cniversity. As it ascends across the orbits of its more fixed and frequent neighbors, we trust it may be, as on preceding occasions, an object to attract a gaze of admiration and to excite interest in the college world. It has been with no little degree of work, worry and anxiety that those delegated to the task have watched for its third appearance, and planned for its coming Its orbit has been uncertain. At times it seemed that the heavenly visitor was to fly into fragments, or with one jump, to pass invisible into the boundless regions of space. This need not cause surprise, for not everything connected with it is solid. It has a nucleus to which indeed we owe its presence once again at Vanderbilt—it also has a caudal appendage, thinner than the morning mists and lighter than the wind-blown chaff, though very beautiful for display (in the list of editors). The fraternities can never hope to do credit to themselves or to their Alma Mater until they realize that the Comet ought to be entrusted only to the best talent that each fraternity commands; but if such has been the case this year, talent is at a low ebb in some of them. Those who have worked upon The Comet are conscious of its imperfections. Criti- cisms are expected, but at the same time, we ask our patrons to remember that, while it is easy to criticize, if is much more dillicult to execute. We have, as far as possible and practicable, represented all interests and features of our I’niversify life, for The Comet is intended to be, and is. the Annual, not alone of the fraternities, but of our whole college. We have striven, in all points, to keep within the bounds of justice and moderation, though not timid, we trust, when timidity were a wrong. The object of the annual should ever be to present boldly, impartially, kindly, the record of each year’s life, its incidents, humorous and sad alike, its evils, its good deeds, and its progress. It 3

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THE COMET 14s- 11 Bishop McTyeire THE death of Bisho] McTyeire brought the world face to lace with his life. Death was to him at once the end and the height of life—its extinction and its culmina- tion. Death was swallowed up in victory. It was the hour of his greatest earthly triumph; and it served to reveal him to men as they had not known him before. From some hearts the veil of prejudice was torn away; from some eyes the scales of blindness dropped; hidden acts of charity were disclosed; forgotten deeds of kind- ness were recalled : misconstrued motives were reconstrued from the standpoint of later action. At the grave, colored lights from here, there and yonder met and merged into absolute white: and it is not an idle metaphor to say that this man looked larger in his eolFin. The review of such a life is often the first real view of it. As its acts are counted up and the sum total appears, as its ever cumulative forces are seen to develop into rounded manhood and useful service, new light is flashed upon the relations ami the results of life, and the observer at each step mounts upward to a wider, a more comprehensive horizon. As the facts of Bishop McTyeire’s life have been thus re-examined, men have talked about him and written about him. Memorial addresses have been delivered, memorial resolutions passed. Anecdotes have come from South Carolina and records from Louis- iana, tributes from (Jeorgia and eulogies from the Pacific slope, sketches from Missouri and editorials from New York, personal reminiscences from many places and words of sorrow from everywhere. So, I say his death has brought us face to face with his life. Within the last few months the events of his life have become more familiar to us than ever before. His early childhood in the old country homestead in South Carolina; glimpses of home-life as portrayed in the pure and sturdy characters of his father and mother; the wholesome influences by which he was surrounded, and the way in which these acted and reacted upon his strong personality; his school life at Cokesbury, where at thirteen years of age he joined the church he was afterward to serve so well; his later pupilage under Dr. Thomas in (Jeorgia ; his college life at old Randolph-.Macon, and