University of North Carolina Chapel Hill - Yackety Yack Yearbook (Chapel Hill, NC)

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quest? He did not need to master; he could serve. And thus he Hved. To all men he was the inspiration and the way to a larger life. Not con- cerned in what he got but in what he gave, he lived that men might have life and have it more abundantly. Without imposing anything upon men, without resorting to trickery or force to advance the cause he stood for, he revealed the supreme con- fidence in truth which betokens the idealist. And the practice of this faith has forever taught us that idealism is only another name for com- mon sense. His life was an ever-increasing triumph. In it was the substance enduring into an eternity which robs death of its sting and the grave of its victory. Secure in his own reality, he looked into the face of his black-browed visitor until she hung her head before him. And Love took up the harp of life and smote on all its cords with might. Smote the cord of self, which, trembling, passed in music out of sight. When the three days of gloom had passed, he rose again. And in the spirit glow of eternal life he dried the mists of grief and dispelled the clouds of dumb despair. In resurrected strength, his spirit, touching ours as before, stirred us to depths before unsounded, revealed to us possibilities before unknown. And today on this campus, even as when he walked among us, he is still the living leader loved of men, inspiring them to that life which is the way, the truth, the light of the world. And he still glows with the glow of triumph, still grows in the affections of men. — Albert M. Coaxes THE SPIRIT OF THE UNIVERSITY Edward K. Graham, September 15, 1916 E meet today — not only to welcome you here, but to pay recog- nition to the true significance of your coming. The sense of joy that the college feels in having you here, and the stirring sense of pride that she feels in having so great a throng of you for her Si I sons, has a deeper source than the mere happiness of association. What seems important at this moment to you and to me, and compels our attention as I think of you and face you as a group — and as individual

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OUR MASTER O speak for the men of Carolina is to speak for men who shun affection ; who know not sham ; who love naturalness ; who seek the truth, and when they find it follow it as their guiding star. To phrase the feeling of these men toward Edward Kidder Graham is to phrase the relationship of free men toward a life which lived with the freedom of the open air and the romance of the morning in a personality which breathed into their lives the inspiration to aspire. It is the revelation of leadership. It is the story of men who, free to choose, chose him as their leader. He saw with the keenness of insight which symbolizes the prophet. He illustrated a strength and stamina transforming inward conceptions into the body and substance of reality which signifies the master builder. His was that way which loses itself in the perfect realization of its pur- pose disclosing the artist. It was the presence of these fundamental parts, each in its fulness, which gave to his life its perfect proportion of life ' s realities, and explains how, in the intense activity of executive require- ments, he was a stimulus without a sting, a force without a jar. These elements, thus perfectly proportioned, and each in its fullness, blending, grew into a life — whole, and wholesome in its wholeness, which gave reality to his vision and accuracy to his conception. Its very com- pleteness e.xplains why he never was, or could be, one-sided, unreasonable, impractical. And so it follows, even as the rosebud is followed by the full-blown rose, that he was the source of his own truth and the origin of his own standard. Being this, there was no place in him for imitation, and he was free from the hollowness and pretence which attends it. Being this, to increase by addition was to belie his nature, and he was free from the affectation of qualities not his own. Attaining his fullness thru growth, his life demonstrated the freshness and the richness of simplicity. Because he knew himself, and was true thereto, there were no other gods before him. Without constraint or friction in himself, he brought into his relations with others that rare union of sweetness and gentleness and strength which breathed the incense of consecration. Self-contained in his completeness, he was come not to be ministered unto but to minister. Complete in himself, what could he gain by con-

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persons, infinitely confident, strong, lovable, ambitious — is what it is that has brought you here, away from the shops, the fields, the sea, the streets, where the vast majority of men of your age are making the grim struggle for success in the rough terms of actual life ; what it is that you have put your faith in that has led you to come and enlist for four precious years under this standard? It has -been one hundred and twenty-one years since Hinton James, the first student here, made the journey that each of you has just made. What he found here was chiefly, and I may say solely, the presiding pro- fessor. Dr. David Ker, who had been waiting for a month for the first student to come. When James finally arrived, I have no doubt that the president assembled him at once and gave him some excellent advice. Without any information whatever on the subject, I will venture to say what it was. He told him that he was at a critical time in his career, that he enjoyed opportunities not enjoyed by other young men; that the country was also in a peculiarly critical situation, and that it looked to the college men to save it ! All of which I take to be perfectly true. Every age is a critical age to a thing that has life, and especially so to a young man who feels the surge of abounding life in every limb. Seventeen ninety-five was a won- derfully critical year in the life of the University, of this country, and the world at large, and especially in the life of the youth Hinton James, as he came here asking the way of life. But not more wonderfully critical, I am sure, than the year 1916-17, to the world, to you, and to me. And so it has been always, and will be to every young man as he gathers up his strength and faces the world with it — to Cain, to Samuel, to Absalom, to David, to the young man who came to the Master by night, asking the true way to life — just as it has been to the unending procession of eager-hearted young men who have followed Hinton James thru these halls, and with the same question in their hearts, if not on their lips. I do not know what Hinton James thought of what the president said. Students here seem always to be normally hospitable toward listening to advice, and abnormally sensible about forgetting as much of it as they don ' t care for. Being a Freshman, James may have felt that the president needn ' t worry about the country (someone has said that a college ought to be a wonderfully wise place — that Freshmen bring such a lot of knowledge, and the Seniors never take any away) ; that he could look after the