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

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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

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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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country in his odd moments if the president would only tell him what there was going on now to keep a fellow from being bored to death. Or, if he was not possessed of this confident spirit of let Hinton do it, he may have been of that other type that has no reaction whatever to the sharp challenge of opportunity and the appeal for a critical decision. He may have been like the darkey who passed a factory as the whistles were blowing for the critical hour of dinner: Blow, blow, he said, with calm resignation to his fate ; Dinner time for some folks ; but ' tain ' t nothin ' but twelve o ' clock for me ! There is plenty of evidence that James was keenly alive to the oppor- tunities offered him : he had an honorable college career, and an after career that was an honor to the college; but if I knew nothing whatever of his record I could say with assurance two simple things about him, as I think I can about you or any other average college man: (1) he wants to enjoy his youth, and gratify the thirst for use that every muscle and pore of his growing body craves. Life thru a hundred keys of interest appeals to him, and above them all he holds a sort of fierce, invincible belief that he has the right to immediate happiness. There wasn ' t anybody here in 1795 but Doctor Ker and Hinton and the Davie poplar, but one of the first things the boy did was to write an essay on The Pleasures of College Life. But he also wrote one on The Uses of the Sun, and another on The Effect of Climate on Human Life. And that suggests the other thing that I would know I could say about him or any other young man coming to college: (2) He not only wants to enjoy to the full the youthful, physical life that is his only once; but also he wants to realize the more keenly felt, tho less clearly defined, passion for something of larger, freer use, mere deeply rooted, of more permanent satisfaction. Thru the eating, drinking, and sleeping of every day, the buttoning and unbuttoning routine of existence, this deeper life of the mind and spirit sends up signals of its hopes and dreams, asking for expression and liberation, and to get born thru him in great forms of useful work, science, or art. Every man feels that passion as really as he does the other. It is the eternal essence of his manhood. There is something in him of the prodigal, of Esau, and of Saul — the men who sold out for a price they could clutch — who swapped their star dust for com- mon clay ; there is something also of the prodigal and Paul — the men who claimed their birthright back, who came to themselves, and came back. Every young man ' s life is an unprecipitated solution of all biography :