Hobart College - Echo of the Seneca Yearbook (Geneva, NY)

Page 31 text:

CHARLES DELAMATER VAIL The death of Professor Charles Delamater Vail at the age of eighty-four de- prived Hobart College of an alumnus whose love for her had become historic, and whose services to her were worthy of his great love. From the first he was an ardent follower of her fortunes, and until his voyage around the world in IQO4-5 he had never been absent from Commencement since 18 56. When he became Horace White Professor of Rhetoric and Elocution in 1872, departments of English in the modern sense existed hardly anywhere. A lover of his subject, Professor Vail'believed that the English language and literature should be taught with the same ideals and objects as had long inspired instruction in Greek and Latin. At Hobart he fully established this principle, for which he was one of the earliest contenders. Not a few distinguished graduates of his day have given as writers and preachers brilliant illustration of the soundness of his views. ' - All this time he was carrying the duties of Librarian and those of Registrar as side-lines. The new library building was occupied in 188 5 and not long after- wards Professor Vail gave up most of his teaching and devoted himself to the highly important task of making for Hobart a modernized library. In ISQO, when the writer first saw it, the Library was already a source of encouragement and pride. Later on, after his retirement from active service, Dr. Vail filled his days with various congenial tasks, of which the most important was his scholarly edition of the Life of Mary Iemisonf' ' This again was a labor of love, but every labor of his was that. Persons, in- stitutions, causes-all had a share in his abundant affection. Cherishing his old friends very intensely, no one felt more keenly than he the losses which advanced years inevitably bring. Yet he attached himself the more closely to the friends who were left, and to the institution+his beloved college-whose cause he had always made his own. He had not an enemy in the world, said one of his oldest friends to the writer, better still, he had not a thought of ill-will toward anyone in the world. He has passed away after a very long life filled with con- genial labors and happy associations. We need not mourn our friend overmuchg he will be at hom.e where kindness is the Law. . l 25'

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IN MEMORIAM CHARLES DELAMATER VAIL A.B. A.M. L.H.D. V - Hobart '59, Born at Goshen, Orange County, N February 1, 1837. Died at Canandaigua, N. Y. July 24, 1921. 2 -. 4 1

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IN MEMQRIAM WILLIAM LUTON WOOD Born 1885. Died at Geneva, N. Y.,- December 9, 1921. 26