University of Idaho - Gem of the Mountains Yearbook (Moscow, ID)

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—— Ee longer concealed truth but revealed it crystal-clear, where there were only rules and no exceptions to the rules, and the word of rebuke was unspoken. And he was in the University and loved the life and lived the life to the full His Latin professor could translate Horace into beautiful English phrases like brain bubbles rising and bursting deliciously and the luminous lectures in history were like rock crystals under polarized light and his professor of Biology drew for him the great cause of life upon the earth—reaching backward to dimness, reaching forward to darkness—human history but one great episode—and the venerable president could not conduct chapel the day after the death of Browning—and the great stone tower and the deep bell—and the campus and the old elm and the games and the students—he loved it all. So he worked till eleven and then read history and Carlyle and Ruskin. But things go wrong even in a University, and one day as he was writing on the last paper for the Medal the competitor beside him gave up and went out with a look on his face that could never be forgotten—the look of one who has played for life and all that life holds, and lost. And as he thought it over, so sorry for the other who had failed, so sorry for himself whose success had brought the bitterness of defeat to a fellow student, the struggle of life seemed vain and unworthy and the struggle toward knowledge seemed hardly worth the effort—and then there came a calmer mood and clear, and with the mood the dream of a world where there is no first and no second in honor, but honor and light for all, and no competition in knowledge, but fellowship in the search for truth, where the minds of all are touched with the broad blessing of understanding. And he devoted himself to a Science—the department does not matter—but he contributed his share to the sum of human knowledge—and he wrote not much but well, and his work stands almost without erasure. Sincerity and certainty mark every line he did, But there too at last in the fulness and clearness of knowl- edge came the enfettering sense of limitation and littleness. How little it is that is known—how little is man and how helpless, short of days and feeble in power— and then there came a dream of a life without limitation, beyond the boundary of age, outside the confines of the unknown, above the barriers of the finite in the light of eternal morning. And that dream was his last, and that dream also came true And which was the man's life—was it the life of his days or was it the life of his dreams—or was it both? For compact of day and dreams, such is a man’s life. And what about the dreams that did not and cannot come true? TWELVE

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DAYS AND DREAMS. By Dr. James A. MacLean. He was a chore boy on a farm and liked the work. He spent his days among the animals, and in the evenings he read the books that gave him most pleasure. And he liked it all—to hear the horses munch their oats, to crack his whip behind the long line of cows, to outwit marauding pigs, to walk among the sheep—and after all to read to his heart's content. But things go wrong some- times, even on a farm, and one day the little pigs broke into the crop and would not be coaxed out, and finally he had to run them down one by one and throw them over the fence, and he was only nine—and he was hot and grimy and bleeding from a cut when he lay down in a furrow to rest and look at the sky. And as he cooled he forgot about the animals, and remembered only his books and his mind wandered to a world where crows do not tear up the corn—nor pigs squeal for food, nor lambs die, nor calves bunt the pail—to the world of literature, where all the actors are men and heroes great and good, moving thro’ their worlds to ends that are good and great and are not fretted with the petty annoyances of life. He was in the High School, his teachers were kind, his studies attractive, his friends the reflections of his own soul and he was happy. All day he was busy with his lessons and in the evenings read history. But even in the High School things go wrong—and one day he could not understand the absurd definition of the Subjunctive Mood, and was floored by a new method of factoring and could not give the French for ““Who is it that the King delights to honor’’ and his favorite teacher spoke sharply to him and he went home almost discouraged. And after supper, when thinking it all over, the boy dreamed again of a world where learning was not difficult but easy, not a task but a pleasure, where language no ELEVEN

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THIRTEEN