graduating class marks the close of the first century of the Academy's
life. The boy is father to the man. The present is the mold in which
the future is cast. The dominant characteristics of the cadet are seen
in the future general. You have learned here how to command, and a
still more useful lesson, how to obey. You have been taught obedience
to the civil, as well as to the military, code, for in this land the
military is always subordinate to the civil law. Not the least valuable
part of your education is your service in the cadet ranks, performing
the duties of a private soldier. That alone can acquaint you with the
feelings and the capabilities of the soldiers you will command. It
teaches you just how long a man can carry a musket in one position
without overfatigue, just how hard it is to keep awake on sentry duty
after an exhausting day's march. You will never forget this part of
your training. When Marshal Lannes's grenadiers had been repulsed in an
assault upon the walls of a fortified city, and hesitated to renew the
attack, Lannes seized a scaling ladder and, rushing forward, cried:
"Before I was a marshal I was a grenadier, and I have not forgotten my
training." Inspired by his example, the grenadiers carried the walls
and captured everything before them.
Courage is the soldier's cardinal virtue. You will seldom go amiss in
following General Grant's instructions to his commanders, "When in
doubt move to the front."
A generous country has with fostering care equipped you for your
career. It is entitled to your undivided allegiance. In closing, let me
mention, by way of illustration, a most touching and instructive scene
which I once witnessed at the annual meeting in the great hall of the
Sorbonne in Paris for the purpose of awarding medals of honor to those
who had performed acts of conspicuous bravery in saving human life at
sea. A bright-eyed boy of scarcely fourteen summers was called to the
platform. The story was recounted of how one winter's night when a
fierce tempest was raging on the rude Normandy coast, he saw signals of
distress at sea and started with his father, the captain of a small
vessel, and the mate to attempt a rescue. By dint of almost superhuman
effort the crew of a sinking ship was safely taken aboard. A wave then
washed the father from the deck. The boy plunged into the seething
waves to save him, but the attempt was in vain, and the father
perished. The lad struggled back to the vessel to find that the mate
had also been washed overboard. Then lashing himself fast, he took the
wheel and guided the boat, with its precious cargo of human souls,
through the howling storm safely into port. The minister of public
instruction, after paying a touching tribute to the boy's courage in a
voice broken with emotion, pinned the medal on his breast, placed in
his hands a diploma of honor, and then, seizing the brave lad in his
arms, imprinted a kiss on each cheek. For a moment the boy seemed
dazed, not knowing which way to turn, as he stood there with the tears
streaming down his bronzed cheeks while every one in that vast hall
wept in sympathy. Suddenly his eyes turned toward his old peasant
mother, she to whom he owed his birth and his training, as she sat at
the back of the platform with bended form and wearing her widow's cap.
He rushed to her, took the medal from his breast, and, casting it and
his diploma into her lap, threw himself on his knees at her feet.
Men of West Point, in the honorable career which you have chosen,
whatever laurels you may win, always be ready to lay them at the feet
of your country to which you owe your birth and your education.
COMPETITION IN COLLEGE
From an address at Columbia University, June, 1909
BY ABBOTT LAWRENCE LOWELL
We have seen that the sifting out of young men capable of scholarship
is receiving to-day less attention than it deserves; and that this
applies not only to recruiting future leaders of thought, but also to
prevailing upon every young man to develop the intellectual powers he
may possess. We have seen also that, while the graduate school can
train scholars, it cannot create love of scholarship. That work must be
done in undergraduate days. We have found reasons to believe that
during the whole period of training, mental and physical, which reaches
its culmination in college, competition is not only a proper but an
essential factor; and we have observed the results that have been
achieved at Oxford and Cambridge by its use. In this country, on the
other hand, several causes, foremost among them the elective system,
have almost banished competition in scholarship from our colleges;
while the inadequate character of our tests, and the corporate nature
of self-interest in these latter times, raise serious difficulties in
making it effective.
Nevertheless, I have faith that these obstacles can be overcome, and
that we can raise intellectual achievement in college to its rightful
place in public estimation. We are told that it is idle to expect young
men to do strenuous work before they feel the impending pressure of
earning a livelihood; that they naturally love ease and self-
indulgence, and can be aroused from lethargy only by discipline, or by
contact with the hard facts of a struggle with the world. If I believed
that, I would not be president of a college for a moment. It is not
true. A normal young man longs for nothing so much as to devote himself
to a cause that calls forth his enthusiasm, and the greater the
sacrifice involved, the more eagerly will he grasp it. If we were at
war and our students were told that two regiments were seeking
recruits, one of which would be stationed at Fortress Monroe, well-
housed and fed, living in luxury, without risk of death or wounds,
while the other would go to the front, be starved and harassed by
fatiguing marches under a broiling sun, amid pestilence, with men
falling from its ranks killed or suffering mutilation, not a single man
would volunteer for the first regiment, but the second would be quickly
filled. Who is it that makes football a dangerous and painful sport? Is
it the faculty or the players themselves?
A young man wants to test himself on every side, in strength, in
quickness, in skill, in courage, in endurance; and he will go through
much to prove his merit. He wants to test himself, provided he has
faith that the test is true, and that the quality tried is one that
makes for manliness; otherwise he will have none of it. Now we have not
convinced him that high scholarship is a manly thing worthy of his
devotion, or that our examinations are faithful tests of intellectual
power; and in so far as we have failed in this we have come short of
what we ought to do. Universities stand for the eternal worth of
thought, for the preeminence of the prophet and the seer; but instead
of being thrilled by the eager search for truth, our classes too often
sit listless on the bench. It is not because the lecturer is dull, but
because the pupils do not prize the end enough to relish the drudgery
required for skill in any great pursuit, or indeed in any sport. To
make them see the greatness of that end, how fully it deserves the
price that must be paid for it, how richly it rewards the man who may
compete for it, we must learn--and herein lies the secret--we must
learn the precious art of touching their imagination.
A MASTER OF THE SITUATION
From a lecture, entitled "Masters of the Situation"
BY JAMES T. FIELDS
There was once a noble ship full of eager passengers, freighted with a
rich cargo, steaming at full speed from England to America. Two thirds
of a prosperous voyage thus far were over, as in our mess we were
beginning to talk of home. Fore and aft the songs of good cheer and
hearty merriment rose from deck to cabin.
"As if the beauteous ship enjoyed the beauty of the sea,
She lifteth up her stately head, and saileth joyfully,
A lovely path before her lies, a lovely path behind;
She sails amid the loveliness like a thing of heart and mind."
Suddenly, a dense fog came, shrouding the horizon, but as this was a
common occurrence in the latitude we were sailing, it was hardly
mentioned in our talk that afternoon. There are always croakers on
board ship, if the weather changes however slightly, but the
_Britannia_ was free, that voyage, of such unwelcome passengers. A
happier company never sailed upon an autumn sea! The storytellers are
busy with their yarns to audiences of delighted listeners in sheltered
places; the ladies are lying about on couches, and shawls, reading or
singing; children in merry companies are taking hands and racing up and
down the decks,--when a quick cry from the lookout, a rush of officers
and men, and we are grinding on a ledge of rocks off Cape Race! One of
those strong currents, always mysterious, and sometimes impossible to
foresee, had set us into shore out of our course, and the ship was
blindly beating on a dreary coast of sharp and craggy rocks.
I heard the order given, "Every one on deck!" and knew what that
meant--the masts were in danger of falling. Looking over the side, we
saw bits of the keel, great pieces of plank, floating out into the deep
water. A hundred pallid faces were huddled together near the stern of
the ship where we were told to go and wait. I remember somebody said
that a little child, the playfellow of passengers and crew, could not
be found, and that some of us started to find him; and that when we
returned him to his mother she spake never a word, but seemed dumb with
terror at the prospect of separation and shipwreck, and that other
specter so ghastly when encountered at sea.
Suddenly we heard a voice up in the fog in the direction of the
wheelhouse, ringing like a clarion above the roar of the waves, and the
clashing sounds on shipboard, and it had in it an assuring, not a
fearful tone. As the orders came distinctly and deliberately through
the captain's trumpet, to "ship the cargo," to "back her," to "keep her
steady," we felt somehow that the commander up there in the thick mist
on the wheelhouse knew what he was about, and that through his skill
and courage, by the blessing of heaven, we should all be rescued. The
man who saved us so far as human aid ever saves drowning mortals, was
one fully competent to command a ship; and when, after weary days of
anxious suspense, the vessel leaking badly, and the fires in danger of
being put out, we arrived safely in Halifax, old Mr. Cunard, agent of
the line, on hearing from the mail officer that the steamer had struck
on the rocks and had been saved only by the captain's presence of mind
and courage, simply replied, "Just what might have been expected in
such a disaster; Captain Harrison is always master of the situation."
Now, no man ever became master of the situation by accident or
indolence. I believe with Shelley, that the Almighty has given men and
women arms long enough to reach the stars if they will only put them
out! It was an admirable saying of the Duke of Wellington, "that no
general ever blundered into a great victory." St. Hilaire said, "I
ignore the existence of a blind chance, accident, and haphazard
results." "He happened to succeed," is a foolish, unmeaning phrase. No
man happens to succeed.
WIT AND HUMOR
Reprinted from "American Wit and Humor," copyrighted in "Modern
Eloquence," Geo. L. Shuman and Company, Chicago, publishers.
BY MINOT J. SAVAGE
Wit may take many forms, but it resides essentially in the thought or
the imagination. In its highest forms it does not deal in things but
with ideas. It is the shock of pleased surprise which results from the
perception of unexpected likeness between things that differ or of an
unexpected difference between things that are alike. Or it is where
utterly incongruous things are apparently combined in the expression of
one idea. Wit may be bitter or kindly or entirely neutral so far as the
feelings are concerned. When extremes of feeling, one way or the other,
are concerned, then it takes on other names which will be considered by
themselves.
But not to stop any longer with definition, it is almost pure wit when
some one said of an endless talker that he had "occasional brilliant
flashes of silence." So of the saying of Mr. Henry Clapp. You know it
is said of Shakespeare, "He is not for a day, but for all time."
Speaking of the bore who calls when you are busy and never goes, Mr.
Clapp said, "He is not for a time, but for all day." And what could be
more deliciously perfect than the following: Senator Beck of Kentucky
was an everlasting talker. One day a friend remarked to Senator Hoar,
"I should think Beck would wear his brain all out talking so much."
Whereupon Mr. Hoar replied, "Oh, that doesn't affect him any: he rests
his mind when he is talking." This has, indeed, a touch of sarcasm; but
it is as near the pure gold of wit as you often get. Or, take this.
There being two houses both of which are insisted on as the real
birthplace of the great philosopher and statesman, Mark Twain gravely
informs us that "Franklin was twins, having been born simultaneously in
two different houses in Boston."
One of the finest specimens of clear-cut wit is the saying of the Hon.
Carroll D. Wright. Referring to the common saying, he once keenly
remarked: "I know it is said that figures won't lie, but,
unfortunately, liars will figure."
In contradistinction from wit, humor deals with incidents, characters,
situations. True humor is altogether kindly; for, while it points out
and pictures the weaknesses and foibles of humanity, it feels no
contempt and leaves no sting. It has its root in sympathy and blossoms
out in toleration.
It would take too long at this point in my lecture to quote complete
specimens of humor; for that would mean spreading out before you
detailed scenes or full descriptions. But fortunately it is not
necessary. Cervantes, Shakespeare, Charles Lamb, Dickens, and a host of
others will readily occur to you. But what could be better of its kind
than this? General Joe Johnston was one day riding leisurely behind his
army on the march. Food had been scarce and rations limited. He spied a
straggler in the brush beside the road. He called out sharply, "What
are you doing here?" Being caught out of the ranks was a serious
offense, but the soldier was equal to the emergency. So to the
General's question he replied, "Pickin' 'simmons." The persimmon, as
you know, has the quality of puckering the mouth, as a certain kind of
wild cherry used to mine when I was a boy. "What are you picking
'simmons for?" sharply rejoined the General. Then came the humorous
reply that disarmed all of the officer's anger and appealed to his
sympathy, while it hinted all "the boys" were suffering for the cause.
"Well, the fact of it is, General, I'm trying to shrink up my stomach
to the size of my rations, so I won't starve to death."
A MESSAGE TO GARCIA
From an article in The Philistine, with the permission of the author
BY ELBERT HUBBARD
When war broke out between Spain and the United States, it was very
necessary to communicate quickly with the leader of the Insurgents.
Garcia was somewhere in the mountain fastnesses of Cuba--no one knew
where. No mail or telegraph message could reach him. The President
must secure his cooperation, and quickly.
What to do!
Some one said to the President, "There's a fellow by the name of Rowan
will find Garcia for you if anybody can." Rowan was sent for and given
a letter to be delivered to Garcia. How "the fellow by the name of
Rowan" took the letter, sealed it up in an oilskin pouch, strapped it
over his heart, in four days landed by night off the coast of Cuba from
an open boat, disappeared into the jungle, and in three weeks came out
on the other side of the island, having traversed a hostile country on
foot, and delivered his letter to Garcia, are things I have no special
desire now to tell in detail.
The point I wish to make is this: McKinley gave Rowan a letter to be
delivered to Garcia; Rowan took the letter and did not ask, "Where is
he at?" By the Eternal! there is a man whose form should be cast in
deathless bronze and the statue placed in every college of the land. It
is not book learning young men need, nor instruction about this and
that, but a stiffening of the vertebrae which will cause them to be
loyal to a trust, to act promptly, concentrate their energies; do the
thing--"Carry a message to Garcia!"
General Garcia is dead now, but there are other Garcias. No man who has
endeavored to carry out an enterprise where many hands were needed, but
has been well-nigh appalled at times by the imbecility of the average
man--the inability or unwillingness to concentrate on a thing and do
it. Slipshod assistance, foolish inattention, dowdy indifference, and
half-hearted work seem the rule; and no man succeeds, unless by hook or
crook, or threat, he forces or bribes other men to assist him; or
mayhap, God in His goodness performs a miracle, and sends him an angel
of light for an assistant.
And this incapacity for independent action, this moral stupidity, this
infirmity of the will, this unwillingness to catch hold and lift, are
the things that put pure socialism so far into the future. If men will
not act for themselves, what will they do when the benefit of the
effort is for all?
My heart goes out to the man who does his work when the "boss" is away
as well as when he is at home. And the man, who, when given a letter
for Garcia, quietly takes the missive, without asking any idiotic
questions, and with no lurking intention of chucking it into the
nearest sewer, or of doing aught else but deliver it, never gets "laid
off," nor has to go on a strike for higher wages. Civilization is one
long anxious search for just such individuals. Anything such a man asks
shall be granted; his kind is so rare that no employer can afford to
let him go. He is wanted in every city, town, and village--in every
office, shop, store, and factory. The world cries out for such; he is
needed, and needed badly-the man who can carry a message to Garcia.
SHAKESPEARE'S "MARK ANTONY"
ANONYMOUS
A Roman, an orator, and a triumvir, a conqueror when all Rome seemed
armed against him only to have his glory "false played" by a woman
"unto an enemy's triumph,"--such is Shakespeare's story of Mark Antony.
Passion alternates with passion, purpose with purpose, good with evil,
and strength with weakness, until his whole nature seems changed, and
we find the same and yet another man.
In "Julius Cęsar" Antony is seen at his best. He is the one triumphant
figure of the play. Cęsar falls. Brutus and Cassius are in turn
victorious and defeated, but Antony is everywhere a conqueror. Antony
weeping over Cęsar's body, Antony offering his breast to the daggers
which have killed his master, is as plainly the sovereign power of the
moment as when over Cęsar's corpse he forces by his magnetic oratory
the prejudiced populace to call down curses on the heads of the
conspirators.
Cęsar's spirit still lives in Antony,--a spirit that dares face the
conspirators with swords still red with Cęsar's blood and bid them,
Whilst their purple hands do reek and smoke,
fulfill their pleasure,--a spirit that over the dead body of Cęsar
takes the hand of each and yet exclaims:--
"Had I as many eyes as thou hast wounds,
Weeping as fast as they stream forth thy blood,
It would become me better than to close
In terms of friendship with thine enemies."
Permission is granted Antony to speak a farewell word over the body of
Cęsar in the crowded market place. Before the populace, hostile and
prejudiced, Antony stands as the friend of Cęsar. Slowly, surely,
making his approach step by step, with consummate tact he steals away
their hearts and paves the way for his own victory. The honorable men
gradually turn to villains of the blackest dye. Cęsar's mantle, which
but a moment before had called forth bitter curses, now brings tears to
every Roman's eye. The populace fast yields to his eloquence. He
conquers every vestige of distrust as he says:--
"I am no orator, as Brutus is;
But, as you know me all, a plain, blunt man,
That love my friend; and that they know full well
That gave me public leave to speak of him."
And now the matchless orator throws off his disguise. With resistless
vehemence he pours forth a flood of eloquence which bears the fickle
mob like straws before its tide:--
"I tell you that which you yourselves do know;
Show you sweet Cęsar's wounds, poor, poor dumb mouths,
And bid them speak for me; but were I Brutus,
And Brutus Antony, there were an Antony
Would ruffle up your spirits, and put a tongue
In every wound of Cęsar, that would move
The stones of Rome to rise and mutiny."
The effect is magical. The rage of the populace is quickened to a white
heat; and, baffled, beaten by a plain, blunt man, the terror-stricken
conspirators ride like madness through the gates of Rome.
ANDR. AND HALE
From "Orations and After-Dinner Speeches," the Cassell Publishing
Company, New York, publishers.
BY CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW
André's story is the one overmastering romance of the Revolution.
American and English literature is full of eloquence and poetry in
tribute to his memory and sympathy for his fate. After the lapse of a
hundred years, there is no abatement of absorbing interest. What had
this young man done to merit immortality? The mission whose tragic
issue lifted him out of the oblivion of other minor British officers,
in its inception was free from peril or daring, and its objects and
purposes were utterly infamous.
Had he succeeded by the desecration of the honorable uses of passes and
flags of truce, his name would have been held in everlasting
execration. In his failure the infant Republic escaped the dagger with
which he was feeling for its heart, and the crime was drowned in tears
for his untimely end. His youth and beauty, the brightness of his life,
the calm courage in the gloom of his death, his early love and
disappointment, surrounded him with a halo of poetry and pity which
have secured for him what he most sought and could never have won in
battles and sieges,--a fame and recognition which have outlived that of
all the generals under whom he served.
Are kings only grateful, and do not republics forget? Is fame a
travesty, and the judgment of mankind a farce? America had a parallel
case in Captain Nathan Hale. Of the same age as André, he, after
graduation at Yale College with high honors, enlisted in the patriot
cause at the beginning of the contest, and secured the love and
confidence of all about him. When none else would go upon a most
important and perilous mission, he volunteered, and was captured by the
British.
While André received every kindness, courtesy, and attention, and was
fed from Washington's table, Hale was thrust into a noisome dungeon in
the sugarhouse. While André was tried by a board of officers and had
ample time and every facility for defense, Hale was summarily ordered
to execution the next morning. While André's last wishes and bequests
were sacredly followed, the infamous Cunningham tore from Hale his
cherished Bible and destroyed before his eyes his last letter to his
mother and sister, and asked him what he had to say. "All I have to
say," was his reply, "is, I regret I have but one life to lose for my
country."
The dying declarations of Andre and Hale express the animating spirit
of their several armies, and teach why, with all her power, England
could not conquer America. "I call upon you to witness that I die like
a brave man," said André, and he spoke from British and Hessian
surroundings, seeking only glory and pay. "I regret I have but one life
to lose for my country," said Hale; and, with him and his comrades,
self was forgotten in that absorbing, passionate patriotism which
pledges fortune, honor, and life to the sacred cause.
THE BATTLE OF LEXINGTON
BY THEODORE PARKER
One raw morning in spring--it will be eighty years the nineteenth day
of this month--Hancock and Adams, the Moses and Aaron of that Great
Deliverance, were both at Lexington; they also had "obstructed an
officer" with brave words. British soldiers, a thousand strong, came to
seize them and carry them over sea for trial, and so nip the bud of
Freedom auspiciously opening in that early spring. The town militia
came together before daylight, "for training." A great, tall man, with
a large head and a high, wide brow, their captain,--one who had "seen
service,"--marshaled them into line, numbering but seventy, and bade
"every man load his piece with powder and ball." "I will order the
first man shot that runs away," said he, when some faltered. "Don't
fire unless fired upon, but if they want to have a war, let it begin
here."
Gentlemen, you know what followed; those farmers and mechanics "fired
the shot heard round the world." A little monument covers the bones of
such as before had pledged their fortune and their sacred honor to the
Freedom of America, and that day gave it also their lives. I was born
in that little town, and bred up amid the memories of that day. When a
boy, my mother lifted me up, on Sunday, in her religious, patriotic
arms, and held me while I read the first monumental line I ever saw--
"Sacred to Liberty and the Rights of Mankind."
Since then I have studied the memorial marbles of Greece and Rome, in
many an ancient town; nay, on Egyptian obelisks, have read what was
written before the Eternal roused up Moses to lead Israel out of Egypt,
but no chiseled stone has ever stirred me to such emotion as these
rustic names of men who fell "In the Sacred Cause of God and their
Country."