Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1925-06-18

group. In 1875. the supremacy of the
older group Of New England authors
was unchallenged.
Today the market value of this
group of securities has sagged. 1t is
useless to deny 1t. You will not find
the House Of the Seven Gables and
The Tales Of the Wayside Inn and
'Snowbound' and the 'Biglow Papers
and the 'Autocrat Of the Breakfast
Table listed among the best sellers
or the month. They are inactive Sc
curities.' But does it follow that they
are unattractive as permanent invest
ments? Are these men representative
or the permanent forces Of our ma
tional literature?
What inner quality did these two
boys possess and what outward cir
cumstances helped or hindered them,
when they left Bowoin 100 years ago
with the dream of becoming writer's :?
I'm the first place it must be said
Of them that they had race. They
were thoroughbreds. Hawthorne's first
American ancestor came over with
Winthrop on the Arbella in 1890
They had also an inherited love Of
books.
"A third quality which these youths
possessed in common was something
which neither good blood nor the love
OF books always supply. It was a
passionate ambition. In the middle of
his senior year Longfellow had writ
ten to his father: I most eagerly as
pire after future eminence in litera-
ture. My whole soul burns most ar
dant1v for and earthly
thought centers in it. Both George
P. Lathrop and George Woodbury.
agree that the real youthful Haw-
thorne is to be found in his words
about his hero Fanshawe: If his in
most heart could be laid open. there
would have been discovered that
dream of undying fame. which dream
as it is, is more powerful than thou
sand realities To both Of these gift
ed youths then, even in their Bruins
wick years, fame was as real as 1t
was to the Elixabethans. Their Sc
cret ambition was to be writers.
Most Of us will admit that New
England colleges, then and now, are
not primarily planned for the benefit
Of young poets, romancers and play
wrights. Such boys are often unhap-
by, restless, ill-adjusted to their en-
v;ronment, and likely to be In trouble
at the deans Office. Their percentage
Of academic mortality runs very high.
II sympathize with those Bowdoln
men who have dwelt so proudly and
affectionately upon the names Of Pro-
fessors Newman and Cleaveland and
Smyth and Upham and Packard, the
teachers to whom Longfellow and
Hawthorne recited. All honor TO
those old time gentlemen. with their
simplicity and dignity and self-deniai,
their fine moral earnestness. Thelr
psychology stressed the will of the
Individual. They were not ashamed
to use the words right and wrong
They believed that the fear OF GOD
was the beginning OF wisdom. 1t IS
easy to call that long vanished world
of theirs q narrow one; but no world
is a narrow one in which boys are
taught to think.
Nevertheless do not believe that
these professors. or any professor
could teach Hawthorne or Long1eiiow
to write. Aside from the mere mech
anism Of composition, nobody ever
taught anybody to write
"Hawthorne and Longfellow were
fortunate in the choice of college, as
they had been fortunate in their birth
and breeding. But perhaps their
greatest good fortune at Bowooin was
what Longfellow called its seciusion
ana repose. They had leisure TOT
cuiet growth, for the long thoughts OF
youth. Sometimes, no loubt, they
FOUND Brunswick dull. They were un-
sophisticated, 1t is true, but now
manv SOPHISTICATED youths OF IL or ~
have ever produced q good stanza or
xN,d nara praDh2
"Tf thew had come to college hum
ar.d wears later they might nave
elected more fascinating courses. ;Iney
would have had a manifold richness
~ opportunity to display their per-
sorei talents. Hawthorne would nave
made an excellent half-back.-if ne
had not been too lazy to train. Long.
fellow would have been chairman OIL
tho dance committee. Both poys' De-
inc clever and lil5eable, would nave re-
voived furiously for four years III
that curious squirrel-cage which eoes
NV the name of extra curriculum az
tivities'; a pleasant Invention, as mus
of us can testify, for giving fho mo-,
sense of motion with less actuai M
cage than any machine YET oesis Nv Nv
ENGLAND world of 1925 to which these
Young men had to adjust themselves
after leaving college? 1t Is easy 10
sav that the general literary conoi-
tions in this country. particularly IN
the 1920 and 1905 were unfavorapie
20 authorship. There were no srea.
nublishing houses, no magazines' anu
tba few literary periodicals supsls.eu
on a misery patronage. .t.o
"yvithin the first dozen years allei
,..,,,ns college, Hawthorne went back
- t,s solitary chamber in Salem, as
averv one knows, and stayed there
rrstire stories, until Horatio Bridge
~,,a anteed the cost of printing twice
ToIa Tales. in 1887. Longfellow. 100
= : hts unpublished letters intimate
,r.nt through a period of marked de-
nression in his professorsMp a.
Rrmnswick, Just before he was caiied
~ cambridge. But there was an
AmArican public, even In that under-
roted epoch from 1926 to 1850, READY
~ tive eager welcome to their DOCKS
q . soon as they could produce DOCKS
worth welcoming. =.
..,rhe image of the world was set In
their hearts;-the round word win
~. civ over It and not merely the
,,rovincial worlds of Brunswick ana
salem and Cambridge. These two sons
- nowdoin went down to the sea In
shin. and. did business in great wat
ers, and
the fame of 1t
Along Times food goes echoing ever
more"
The next speaker was Edward rage
Mitchell, Bowdoin 1871, for many
s.nar. od,for OF the New York Sun,