Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1920-06-25


termination of his thirty-hve years
service to Middlebury College Profess
sor Charles B. Wright, head OF the De-
partment of English Literature and
Rhetoric, delivered his farewell address
Sunday afternoon in Mead Chapel, at
the Anniversary of the Christian Asso
Citations, his theme being "The Com
mon Aims of the College and the Com
munity".
The address is here published prac-
tically in full as follows;
"rNever the time-so the poet sings
Never the time and the place and
the loved one all together If that
lament be indeed the rule in a world
of unattained desires, the part so gen
erously given me in crowded Com
mencement programme may surely be
regarded as the exception that will
prove it-for the time is for me the
week of weeks in the long series of
which it is the crown; the place this
center of our college life, from hepce
forth rendered doubly dear through
the loss of him who gave it; and the
loved ones you of both college and
town whose unfalteripg friendship
through the years has made of life a
pleasant thing, its every task a joy,
But the hour is fraught with dan
ger; it invites to Renaissance, that
last infrmity of noble minds. Thirty
five years are no short span, even in
the life of a college as old as ours, and
many changes, some of them largely
significant, must needs have marked
their passage. The setting is indeed
the same-ths glorious panorama of
mountains and river and valley-but
of everything else how little remains
unaltered The campus itself, no longer
the bayfield, of the olden time but
much of it carefully tended and to all
intents and purposes public park,
has grown from 30 to 240 acres, and
that, too, with the removal OF but ten
of the additional acres from the tax
roll of the town The teaching staff
has come to be five times larger; there
were only seven in the Faculty of
which became member. The num-
Der of undergraduates has been multi
Piled by ten there were less than
forty in the catalogue of 1856 1t
was loyal subterfuge of the students
of those days-a deception overlooked,
trust, by a sympathetic recording
angelic meet the query of strangers
by giving our enrolment as between
one and two hundred Our buildings
have been quadrupled not counting
Hamlin Commons, the only buildings
in 50 were those OF the oldtme col
lege row. Painter and Starr and the
Old Chapel-howeve flanked and but
tressed by ambitious structures of
more recent date, those three are still,
and may they ever so remain, our
chiefest ornament
"To have been connected, in however
unimportant a way, with the growth
OF which l have spoken; to be able in
retrospect to say even 'Parva Dars
quorum fui- is cause for pardonable
pride But heart's-ease is peculiar
flower it does not always multiply as
field is added to field; and that ma
terial growth of ours, gratifying though
it has been, could not of itself have
filled the years with their exquisite de-
lights. The sources though, are not
far to seek; and first among them let
me place the unfailing kindness accord
ed me in college and community. In
JOY and sorrow, through all the years,
+bo+ l-;pduace boc ,aau Conctaut For
generous judgments, when severe ones |
might have been justified; for charit-
able overlooking of innumerable mis-
takes; for the gracious acceptance OF
purpose for performance-for all OF
these and for how much more l must |
ever remain a debtor.
Second in order one should place
his relation to his students. OF the
joys of that relation it is difficult to
speak in terms that shall not seem
overdrawn, To share in the moulding |
of those eager and plastic minds; to
meet them at the opening gate and |
lead them out a guide but a compan-
ion too, into the reckoning fields OF
beauty and of truth; to chasten their
enthusiasm but never to chill it; to |
cherish that idealsm of theirs so spon-
taneous, so priceless, and yet to guide
it unmpaired into channels of helpful
practicality-what other calling is
more worthy to be counted a ministry;
what other makes requisition on great
er powers of mind and heart and soul?
"And through all the years that are
ending, to have had both men and
women to teach has heightened the
pleasure of that association. l know
of course that as regards its practical
treatment the question of co-education
is one OF expediency rather than of
principle Conditions differ and it may
very well be that the policy best for
one college would be wholly inadvis-
able for another. Nevertheless it is
my belief that the normal, the ideal
way is the way of co-education. l
believe, too, that the results with us
have amply justified the innovation of
1883. If l am not mistaken, and 1
nave watched its workings many years, (
t has appreciably raised our standard
If both scholarship and morals and
while, perhaps, the time has come
personally l believe it has-for a larger
Measure of differentiation, trust that
here NAV always be uDon this college