Princeton University - Nassau Herald Yearbook (Princeton, NJ)

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THE NASSAU HERALD. 21 her influence upon our lives cannot have been in vain. Never, even in our most intense struggles in the time to come, can we forget her high teachings, can we subside into the belief that the highest reward that life has to offer us is a temporal one, that self-renunciation is an old vvife's fable, and material good is man's safest and surest aim. Our Alma .Maier has brought us face to face vviththe great souls of the past, the fragrance of whose memory can never wholly .escape us. She, has bid us learn from them that 4' life is more than meat, as thetbody is more than raimentg that achievement is not needed to make life a success. Even that apparent failure may be real success, whose influ- ence may affect ages beyond the present. V As she sends us forth from-her walls she speaks to each one of us- Greatly begin z though thou have time But for a line: be that sublime, Not failure: but low aim is crimef' If our class relationship has taught us anything it has taught us the' interdependence of men, and I know of no grander aim for life than that taught by modern altruism- the living with and for others, the brotherhood of man. We are at times apt to think it merely poetry, and sensible men have declared that it is largely nonsense, a creation for poets and pale sentimental college graduates to babble over. . They say a man is born and dies alone, and, while sympathy and charity are very sweet, a man's chiefest duty is to himself. This is true in a sense, and the answer of the Princeton catechism is worthy of remembrance, The chief end of man is self-realization and the glory of God. But still the greatest road to self-realization is through altruism. It pours into us the wealth of other's natures, and, while drawing from' us, leaves us neither flaccid nor drained, but only hastens the development of our character, which is growing more and more to be the most powerful factor in life, far outweighing achievement or action. And is there not scope enough here for the strongest and the weakest of

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20 THE NASSAU HERALD. ing of the deep unqniet will, the delusive hope of a little enjoyment of material reward? Look beneath the surface, and see the real nature of these rewards which the material world has to oiier us. .Is this feverish turmoil a reward? Is a life-in which rapidity is the highest. good worth living? in which rich men's sons are hurried oft' in their teens to business before they are scarcely beyond their spelling-books, in which the fruit is plucked green and allowed only a pre- carious ripening upon the market stand? ' The god of modern life is indeed become a material god, a god of wood, iron, gold and brass. Practical achievements are his burnt offerings, and money-making his heave offering. Such a Divinity!! His Worship is robbing our lives of much beauty and nobility. Look into the faces you meet upon the streets. Anxious eyes, expectant eyes, a wearing out of brain and nerve and tissue, but scarcely a thought about the golden streets. Truly his feet are miry clay. Somewhere and somehow that appalling question will meet us. What protiteth a man's 'labor under the sun ? Some- times a breath of real life, of anguish or bereavement will blow upon- us, and our Divinity will fall upon us and crush us as we raise our eager hands to him for comfort. What will it matter then that we can 4' mould the great earth to our will ? My classmates, if we have a mission, I do not believe it is to reform politics, as we are so often told, but rather to carry into life some of the grace and dignity of intellectual pursuits. It becomes us not to rush into life as into a selnsh struggle, with our neighbors for prizes which turn to dust and ashes in our grasp. We have been living an ideal life for four years. We have been members of a society from whose borders the intense interests of the outside world have been excluded, where friendship and sympathy have bloomed into full growth, a society hallowed by a noble history, rich in the treasures of literature and all the means of culture. Surely

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22 THE NASSAU HERALD. us? Are there not parched lips never wet with water of sympathy? Are there not imploring hands and piteous voices who may be stilled? Are there not wrongs that cry out to heaven to be righted, and rough places to be made smooth for the progress of humanity? But the time draws near now when we are to separate, when ties are to be broken and new interests are to take the place of those which are to live but in memory. Before we meet again as a class, changes must come, from the thought of which we shrinkg but no change can take from us the memory of Princeton, no change can wipe out its iniiuence. And, as the broken circle re-unites again, as we mark the vacant places, where once were living links, we shall not feel that we have not parted with any of our classmates forever, but We will look forward to another re- union and will not be sorrowful, for Somewhere is comfort, somewhere faith, Though thou in outer dark remain, One sweet, sad voice ennobles death, And still saith softly, , Ye meet again.