1897

Your correspondent has nothing to say about the movements or visitations of the members of our class. In fact we have come to the years when most of us prefer quiet hours and little activity. But few as our number may be, your correspondent greets you and wishes you well as you, perhaps, sit in your easy chairs.

This greeting is also extended to the women of our class. We never saw them on the campus except on festive occasions. I do not know if any class of Dartmouth has ever counted you as members of its class. Perhaps this is an innovation I now make as I count those of you who have loved and lost those we used to greet as classmates on the campus: but this I do, I count you as classmates and as the correspondent of the class of '97 I greet you.

Physical weakness forbids me the privilege of carrying on an active life. But I now know the truth of what an old man once said. "We know not in youth what in man we now behold, for we know not life's cares until we're growing old."

I do not want to make this a treatise of personal experience, but things do happen that make one turn to the past and as from a deep well bring up a draught to revive memories. I give you an illustration.

It was a wonderful tenor voice that came to me over my television one evening. The artist sang an old love song I had known a long time ago. An old man sang an old love song to his wife. She also was old in years. These were some of the words of the song:

"Darling I am growing old, Silver threads among the gold.

But you shall ever be Ever young and fair to me."

Only these two elderly people knew the deep streams they had crossed, or the burdens they had borne.

Now I have taken a long road, a kind of detour. Yet all the time I have had a definite point in view. There are facets in this thing we call LIFE. Heroism has its outward show. But out of the heart of man come those impulses that make man more heroic.

In a rambling way your correspondent is aiming at a definite point. The singer was a great artist. He was not born that way. He was not born to melt the hearts of those who heard his song. The soul's deep desire, the determination, to learn, it was this that carried the singer to great artistry.

Those of the class of '97 of whorn I now speak may not be thought of as in any way heroic. They too had a deep desire to learn. One came to Dartmouth with only fifty dollars in his pocket. He lived on mush and milk until he could get a job. Two others lived for weeks on bread and Irish potatoes. One of Dartmouth's greatest athletes could not entirely furnish his bed. He slept on his mattress on the floor.

Your correspondent has had his visit with you men and women of the class of '97. Perhaps I have shown to you the valiant character of some of our classmates and also how possible it is to get an education without political enactment.

Class Notes Editor 52 Williams St., Rutland, Vt.