Alma record. (Alma, Mich.) 1878-1928, 1915-09-30
SOME THINGS BY THE WAY"

SOME THINGS BY THE Way
Some of the most sacredly treas
ured memories of my senior collegi-
ate year are associated with the extra
curriculum function of editorship of
the Literary magazine of the college,
which | shared with a small elected
group of my classmates. We took
ourselves very seriously-did we bud
ding editors.
We were the heirs to certain GUS
toms and traditions handed down by
our predecessors from class to class,
for our jealous keeping. We were
editing, not a newspaper with its free
lance English, but literary maya
zine with its severity in style and
chastity OF speech. We were phar-
isees of the most straitest sect, and
kept sacredly to the traditions of the
fathers. Our own Thoreau, Haw-
thorne, Lowell, Jas. T. Fields, Macau-
lay, and the Scotch essayists and Re-
viewers were some of the gods of lit
erary style set up i'm our pantheon We
were severely literary; and it is but
fair to say that "The Nassau Literary
Magazine" was the culture-medium
of not few men since known in
literature. There was Sam Brothers,
. bashful, red-cheeked youth who was
then just beginning to be the distin-
guished essayist and critic that he
now is. And there, TOO, was Robert
Bridges whose muse was just begin
ming to sing through his verse. And
there was Henry VanDyke, then a
dapper, college chap, who found in
this magazine the literary wings on
which he scared away toward the
blue.
AS vent to the severity of literary
fashion, and as a foil to its saner
moments, the Magazine carried a
department of alleged humor, in
which the quips and jests were nearly
as good, perhaps, as those usually
appearing in the Almanian.
We did not, however, commit the
intellectual indiscretion of passing
sharply and suddenly from the very
literary to the very light. We ap-
medium of another department, lit
Ale less frivilous than the humorous
ges, and yet somewhat less serious
Ian the literary pages. 1t treated
/3ractical, every day affairs in good
but not severe and stilted forms. 1t
called a spade spade, but tried to
be fair and respectful to the man who
used the spade. This compromise de-
partment, this atrium deorum, was
by the college drone habit of speech,
into "Olla-Pod." And this, as Mr..
Brewer in his Handbook for Eng
lish Readers" will tell you, means
"Things by the Way" And that gives
me the title to my topic today.
l desire in simple, and yet not un-
worthy, speech to talk with you of
"SOME THINGS BY THE WAY"
This accords me the capricious privi-
lege of touching upon many, and may
'ba, very unlike things. And yet, as |
be, you shall see, thesethings, dis
/ hiIar though they may be, shall be
lonnd to have their principle of unity
an the fact that they all belong to our
n College, and to its life and peace and
power in itself; and, through itself,
to you who are so vital a part of it..
1. May |, at the risk of triteness,
Venture to remind you that, in coming
TO college, you have come to one of
the high places of life?
You have quilted the secondary
schools supposedly because you have
practically exhausted them. They
have given you what are called the
fundamentals of education. | hope
this fundamental work has been so
wrought as to prove both broad and
deep and enduring. For though, like
the foundation of some great struc-
ture, these preparatory hours of
study lie out of sight, yet, like those
Continued on page 2.)