The daily morning journal and courier., 1900-04-06
TEN EYCK PRIZE SPEAKING
WON BY ARIHUR 1T. GLEASoN or
 SOUTH NORW1LK.
The Junior Exhibition Held in College
 Street Hall Yesterday Afternoon Was Largely Attended-Thc Subject of the
 Prize Essay: "NOrtre Dame de Paris.'


 Prize Essay. "Nortre Dame de Paris.'
 The Ten Eyck prize for the best essay
 by member of the junior class at Yale
 was awarded last evening to Arthur
 Huntington Gleason of South Norwalk, Conn. The subject of his essay was "Notre Dame de Paris" The essays were delivered in the College street hall yesterday afternoon before an unusual ly large audience President Hadley presided, At the conclusion of the speaking the judges retired, and for more than an hour remained in consult ation. The announcement of the winner was received with cheers by the stu dents assembled on the campus.
 The prize is the income of $2,600 es- tablished in 1888 by the Kingsley Trust association in memory of Henry James Ten Eyck of the class of '79.
 Recitations in the, academic depart ment were omitted in the afternoon in order that students might attend the speaking. The prize essay is as. folS lows:
 The Worlds exposition at Paris will sum up the achievement of our modern life. There the nations gather, each to present it's tale of plenty scientific, in dustrial and artistic. But perhaps some visitor, wearying of the huddled wealth, will turn aside to stand at gaze before a heavy building, facing west It is Notre Dame, the Cathedral of Paris the perfect expression of the twelfth century So near the vastness Of the modern exhibit, it seems measre. But we can vainly hope to vie with the won der of that building. It is the voice of all the varied life of the Middle Age.
 But the Notre Dame that is nobly representative of its day and generation is only memory; for a mob destroyed it. and a fool restored. A tinkered ruin is ghastly sight and the cathedral as it stands to-day is dishgured and dis graced Let Us see it as it faced the dying sun for the two centuries of it's youth sincere, the record of race. It can tell us much of the people and the time, for work of art is autobiography not the less that it be wrought in stone
 It is the great glory of architecture that to no imperial genius belongs the credit of the finished work. The poem is thrown off at white heat by the lone ly. rhapsodist The cathedral was built as the coral reef is built. It was splendid piece of anonymous work, the slow accretion of hundreds of laborers Independent and equal, with all the years of the future thrown open to them They elaborated the veriest trifle and toiled over each detail, for work to them was joyous All Paris built. In- deed there can be no true architecture unless the nation labors. The seven lean centuries that have followed those years of superb production prove that noble structures may not be made by a few hired specialists
 The Cathedral of Paris is an embodi- ment of the building spirit of, the times. It is no isolated wonder, the record Of a forced enthusiasm. But, just as pure religion and undecided is this, that man live out daily the high aspirations \ of his Sabbath mood, so the construc- tive style of the cathedral was one with that of shop and home. Paris was filled with the pointed arch. The saints that walk in long procession over the porta's of Notre Dame graced each household of the land Every meanest alley had "Gothic profile."
 The builders and sculptors of the Mid- de Age labored in sincerity. The artist did not choose his subject indifferently from pagan literature or Holy Writ. His theme lay heavy on his conscience. He put his hearts blood into the work, which might prove crude, but never tame Hell was very real thing to him, and the terror of it must be trans mitted to the beholder. The sinner is cowed into repentance by chimeres and grinning gargoyes. And the effect of these weird bits of sculpture was tre- mendous The quaint old Latin record tells us of men moved to tears by these sermons in stone.
 But not all the sculpture threatened. Much of it was beautiful and winning. Lovingly the artist dealt with the leg ends of saint and martyr, and the Test aments-Old and New. His splendid earnestness, which rendered all his works meet for reproof and instruction, never permitted him to carve face | empty of expression. He did not strive for correct features, but rather to have each countenance show forth an inner emotion. Those hundreds of statues that people Notre Dame lack the calm, cold distance of the Greek type. The | expression is that of tenseness strength | or struggle. for the artist realized that | the common people baked at an ab- straction and craved the warmth of | personality. He sought to give them what would make an instant appeal to their eye and so to their conscience. But he never stopped to humor his au dieuce His stern creatures of symbolic meaning-those animals of the Patmos yision-have in them all the horrof old night and waste places. He did into stone his hearts dream and strongest belief.
 No single building sums up our life to-day. but the Cathedral of Paris was like a theater where tragedy and com edy and all the dramas of changing eX- istence were played in swift succession. It was here that the common people were welcomed as worshippers. For | them were given Miracle Plays and the Feast of Fools. "They read their Bible on it's walls" All history was carved out on high And so they came to love the gloomy church, because it stood for all in life that raised them from their low estate.
 Nor was it of less import to the great. Tbe pageantry of official life makes