University of Chicago - Cap and Gown Yearbook (Chicago, IL)

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mpmnrial Ahhrwz By Harry Pratt Judson ' O-DAY WE STAND face to face with the great mystery of the Q, t ages- the mystery which eludes philosophy, which has given the deepest thrill to the song of the poet, its most somber tones to music and art. 6 Life now flows with abundant tide through every Veinathought and joy and strife, the tender touch of the hand of a friend, the countless emotions and Visions and busy planning which fill the living souI- these all are pulsing strong in the riotous vigor of rugged Vitality. But noweethe great silence-and for those who remain on this side the veil, Oh for the touch of a vanished hand, And the sound of a voice that is stilllii The mystery envelopes us now. Its shadow dims the sight and chills the heart. Is it mere darkness-the darkness of a limitless void? Is the speech of the old Northum- brian Ealdorman true? itSo seems the life of man. 0 King, as a sparrow's flight through the hall when you are sitting at meat in winter-tide, with the warm fire lighted on the hearth, but the icy rainstorm without. The sparrow flies in at one door, and tarries for a moment in the light and heat of the hearth-fire and then flying forth from the other, vanishes into the wintry darkness whence it came. 50 tarries for a moment the life of man in our sight; but what is before it, what after it, we know notf' The intellectual and spiritual founder of our University was above all the incarnation of intense life. He was cheerful energy personified. His delight was in varied and unremitting worka-his rest was in some other work. His zest in activity was keenahe had eager relish in grappling with difficulty. In fact, to him a difficulty was not a thing to evade nor to surmount-it was a thing to go straight through. Against adverse circumstance he was a very Andrew jackson, 0f joyous and tenacious pugnacity. Beaten once, he returned again and again to the attack with ever renewed spirit and determin- ation. It was the spirit of the conquerorwthe very ichor of Victoryawhich flowed in his veins. New forms of truth, new experience, new outlooks on life, roused always his eager interest. He was not impatient with the commonplace-he ignored it, as he was always so absorbed in the unusual and the striking. He found the world full of delightful problems and of the most fascinating studies. He had the seeing eye, which pierced the surface right to the soul of things. And this was Iife-life in its fullness and in its rich variety. In every teeming sense of the word the President was distinctively a live man and a man who rejoiced in life. A few phases of this busy and complex life of his I wish to discuss briefly to-day. 29

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First of all he was a teacher and with him teaching was not mere tasteless drudgery with which to earn his bread. Teaching;and all his old students will assent to this!teaching was to him a delight. He threw himself into it with the same eager enthusiasm with which he attacked any problem. His field was a very special one. He seemed at one time think it his mission to set all the world studying Hebrewiiand under his magnetism it really appeared as if it might be done Any subject under such a teacher would be the delight to anyone. What becomes of a teachers work? The architect rears a stately mansion, the engineer constructs a bridge of steel, the painter puts on canvas his dream of beauty, and all may come and look, and go, and look again, The teacher throws into his chosen calling the best energy of heart and brain, and it is goneidlssipated among the silent forces which create and recreate social life; it vanishes from sight like a mist under the morning sun. But in fact there is no loss, The true teacher's creative work lives on rrlives long after the teacher himself is genealives in the quickened intellectual life of many souls, in the inspiration to loftier ideals, in the character fashioned by his glowing personality. Throughout this broad land there are thousands of men and women in whom our President has kindled a sacred fire which is deathless. He lives in them. Again, he was an eager investigator!a truth seeker. Conventional belief, dogma tradition, had for him no weight. The only question was, what is true? His was the real scientific spirit. It was for this reason that the biologist, the astronomer, the geologist, all found in the professor of Hebrew so sympathetic and intelligent a friend. His methods were theirs. His cardinal canons of research were identical with those of the men of science. He could understand. But he was more than a seeker for truth Truth in itself is imbecile. it never won a victory, it never cleansed a decayed society, never uplifted the thoughts of men. But when truth becomes incarnate, when it animates the soul of a loyal and courageous man, then it is no longer an abstraction of thoughtithen it is a dynamic force. So was it with our President, When he once ciearly apprehended truth, it possessed him. it was not laid away ticketed on the shelf of the museum. It was the very life of his life-wit was himself. Hence came the tremendous force of his advocacy of any cause. l-lis belief in it was not asin some extraneous entity; he was himself the cause; in him it was incarnate. It is here, it seems to me, that we find the keynote of his complex character. Service to others-vthat was the essence of his life. Scientific truth which seemed to have no bearing on bettering human conditions did not appeal to him. it he found some form of learning a spiritual benefit to himself, he was at once possessed with a passion for spreading it far and wide. When the building of a university came in his way, again he threw himself into it with the same devoted enthusiasmiihere was a new way to help those who were in need. The hunger for knowledge, the hunger for intellectual thought, these forms of human desire he longed to satisfy. No new kind of altruistic endeavor appealed to him in vain. His interests therefore were manifoldibut through them all ran the one golden thread of service to humanity. He had no atom of selfish ambition. In this age of greed and of shady public life he shines as a star of pure white light. SO