Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1914-09-25
COLLEGE OPENS.

Thursday morning, the students filling
the body of the Congregational church
and good audience occupying the gal
leres. The old students were back in
force, and when the freshmen were
asked to rise it was noted that the rec
ord of recent years for classes of over
one hundred would be sustained.
After brief devotional exercise, at
which Mrs Miner presided at the organ,
President Thomas delivered his opening
address and announced that recitations
would begin at 1920 that morning The
subject of the address was "Substi-
tutes for the Military Incentive" " and
was in part as follows:
In the Fourth Book of the Georges the
poet Virgil says: "While great Caesar
hurled wars lightnings by high Eu-
pirates, even in that season |, Virgil,
nutured in sweet Parthenope, went in
the ways of lowly quiet" The lines
describe our privilege and situation this
morning. While in the lands whence
we have derived our scholarship, whose
| literatures and histories we study, and
with whose learned institutions and
savants we continue in academic fellow
ship, there is to today war and confu-
sion, we are met in quiet and confidence
to begin the routine of the college year.
We can scarcely realize the difference
between our situation today and that of
sister institutions across the sea. In
Germany, France and Russia the uni
versities, and even the secondary
schools, will not open their doors for the
first semester. Word reached me last
week of friend on the faculty of the
University of Halle, man over sixty
years of age, who had gone to the front.
At oxford over 1000 students have al
ready enlisted in the British army.
Professor Bryant reports that even be-
fore he left Cambridge laboratories had
been given over to the Red Cross that
the ancient halls, which have sheltered
students since the Middle Ages, would
this year not be opened; and that it was
sty would be closed for the year. Our
imaginations follow to the battlefields
and we shield our eyes from the smitter
and he slain of the flower of the ad-
vanced nations of the earth. We need
no encouragement to consider the favor
of providence whereby we are still per
mitted to pursue the ways of lowly
quiet.
There is another side of the matter,
however, to which invite your atten-
tion. ask you to think of the imperi-
Gus summons to manhood which has
sounded for the university men in the
nations now at war. Imagine the
scenes in a German University city.
The Corps and Burschenschaften no
longer parade the streets in gorgeous
frocks and many tinted Mute. They
are permitted to wear the eagle of the
empire, to grid on real swords in place
of the playthings of the Mensur, and tC
march in an army a million strong.
The thousand men of oxford have some
thing far more inspiring than to watch
a cricket match or to sit on the banks
of the sleepy Thames and see if THEN
boat can bump the Cambridge eight
They feel today the thrill of the Iron
sides of Cromwell and claim fellowship
with the mighty dead of England beside
the Seven Seas brakes drum has
. ] nA IN, ha oh al nd h.
motto of Nelson is once more to the
mast. The students of Russia. who fol
generations have cherished the phios
ophy of pessimism and unbelief anc
have nourished revolution in secre
bands, have found in a day that they
have country to live for, a flag tC
,, which in honor they may give their life
am not concerned just now with the
cause for which any of these nation.
wage war. shall not apportion rgh
or wrong, or the justice or injustice OF
any cause. ask you only, for tn,
moment, to feel your way into the mine
of any of these great peoples, and t
realize the call that comes to them.
is great thing to live and be young il
any nation which believes, whethe
rightly or wrongly, that it is fghtnl
for its life, for a principle, for honor
1t is glorious to be a student of Oxfor(
today and to be one of the thousand foun'
strong enough to follow the colors
The German youth who throws hi
Verbindung cap into the corner and don
the uniform of his country symbolizes
transformation within him which h,
would not otherwise attain in years.
will go the lengths with any advocat
of peace and of the judicial settemen
,, of international disputes. | am no
: Indifferent to the horrors of war, to tn
Y waste of armaments, and to the mon