The Yale Literary Magazine (Vol. LXXXIX, No. 1, 1923)

(VOL. LXXXIX, NO. 1, 1923) ***

+----------------------------------------------------------------+ | Vol. LXXXIX No. 1 | | | | The | | | | Yale Literary Magazine | | | | Conducted by the | | | | Students of Yale University. | | | | [Illustration] | | | | “Dum mens grata manet, nomen laudesque YALENSES | | Cantabunt SOBOLES, unanimique PATRES.” | | | | ----::---- | | | | October, 1923. | | | | ----::---- | | | | New Haven: Published by the Editors. | | | | Printed at the Van Dyck Press. 121-123 Olive St., New Haven. | | | | ----::---- | | | | Price: Thirty-five Cents. | | | | _Entered as second-class matter at the New Haven Post Office._ | +----------------------------------------------------------------+

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+-------------------------------------------------------------------+ | THE YALE LITERARY MAGAZINE | | | | | | | | | | Contents | | | | OCTOBER, 1923 | | | | | | Leader _Morris Tyler_ 1 | | | | Corydon _Lucius Beebe_ 5 | | | | “The Swift and Sharp-tongued Flame of Death” | | _Eugene A. Davidson_ 7 | | | | Three Poems _Walter Edwards Houghton, Jr._ 8 | | | | To One Bereaved _D. G. Carter_ 11 | | | | Lady of the Sea _R. P. Crenshaw, Jr._ 12 | | | | Coelum non animum mutant qui trans mare currunt | | _Morris Tyler_ 13 | | | | Quatrains _C. G. Poore_ 14 | | | | Lines _John R. Chamberlain_ 15 | | | | The Great Pan Jandrum _W. T. Bissell_ 16 | | | | Maurice Hewlett _Richard L. Purdy_ 22 | | | | The Egolatress _C. G. Poore_ 25 | | | | Book Reviews 37 | | | | Editor’s Table 44 | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------+

The Yale Literary Magazine

VOL. LXXXIX OCTOBER, 1923 NO. 1

_EDITORS_

WALTER EDWARDS HOUGHTON, JR. LAIRD SHIELDS GOLDSBOROUGH DAVID GILLIS CARTER MORRIS TYLER NORMAN REGINALD JAFFRAY

_BUSINESS MANAGERS_

GEORGE W. P. HEFFELFINGER WALTER CRAFTS

_Leader_

It would be difficult for even the most blindly ardent supporter of Yale to deny that the traditional four-year course for the degree of Bachelor of Arts no longer remains intact. There are probably fewer who realize that an ever increasing number are receiving that degree after completing a course that has had little or no relation to the field of learning to which, by its very title, it is closely related.

Disintegration of the long established College curriculum has been going on ever since the war. It began with the introduction of the old “Select Course” of the Scientific School into the Academic curriculum under the imposing title of Bachelor of Philosophy. This innovation was followed shortly by the institution of the Common Freshman Year. Furthermore, if a student now intends to become a lawyer, he may devote an entire year (and that his Senior year) to the study of law--and yet graduate as a Bachelor of Arts. Likewise, if an undergraduate desires to devote his life to the practice of medicine, he may start as early as Sophomore year, spending most of his time in the laboratories on Prospect Hill scrutinizing the hidden mechanism of feline organs--and still graduate as a Bachelor of Arts. In other words, assuming that the Freshman year is not very different from what it was in ante-bellum days, which is not the case, one-third of every class in Yale College is now graduated as B.A. men without more than a three years’ “exposure” to the subjects which, in the eyes of the world, are customarily associated with that educational label.

The reason for this state of affairs may be fairly stated in a single word--vocationalism. This utilitarian mania for taking the short-cut to one’s life-work has been in recent years the ideal of a large portion of American college men, and has left its mark on almost every educational institution in this country, by forcing them to change their curricula to meet the demand. Harvard long ago yielded to the pressure of vocational demands in the matter of time, permitting graduation in three years. It was not long after that Columbia took still more drastic action by allowing admission to her graduate schools at the end of Junior Year. In so doing these institutions were unconsciously practicing the methods of the Correspondence Schools and the twenty-lessons-in-your-home concerns whose business it is to supply the needs of those who seek the short road to the payroll. The liberal colleges endeavoring to provide such short-cuts by making inroads on their liberal curricula are untrue to their genius and merely challenge impossible competition.

It may be argued that this desire for specialization at the earliest possible moment was the natural result of the ever increasing complexity of modern life and the bewildering ramifications of present-day knowledge which forced the bulk of undergraduates to accept isolation in a single subject. This may be quite true, yet there remains the question of whether or not it is the place of the college, and in particular Yale College, to offer that opportunity even in part.

The recognized place for specialization is the graduate school. The graduate student works presumably in a special atmosphere created by the common labors of a common group for a common end; the end being a particular degree desired because it has come to signify that the bearer of such a symbol has mastered the details of a recognized branch of learning. A graduate school is the most suitable medium for accomplishing the task in hand. It is the only reason we have post-graduate schools at all.

The existing situation in the college is exactly the reverse. Those who are working for the B.A. degree and nothing else are carrying on side by side with what are in reality pre-medical students and first-year lawyers. Out of this have sprung two separate points of view on the same campus. On the one hand there is a group which pursues its studies with the realization that upon the complete mastery of every detail depends in a large measure the success or failure of its life-work. On the other, there remain those who are still searching in their work for that particular field which to them will seem to be the one to which they wish to devote their future time and energy. The result is a repetition of the old story of the house divided against itself. It is just this condition, we believe, that has led to such restless, groping questionings as, “What is Yale for?” The definition of a university as being one body of which there are many members admirably illustrates the point. For the college to-day is in the anomalous position of attempting to perform the duties of two members where it formerly functioned as one. Such a state of affairs is not conducive to the health of any organization whatever.

The solution in the minds of many seems to lie in the abolishment of the old college course, following the law of the survival of the fittest. This issue of our present afflictions we believe would be a regretable blunder. There should always be a place for the study of the so-called liberal arts; for the contemplation of “all the best that has been thought and said and done in the world”. Without such a background many a man cannot do his best work. What place is better fitted to continue this undertaking than Yale, established in this spirit, as attested by the words of the founder, “I give these books for the founding of a college”? Professor Mather in a recent address summed up the ideal of the college in these glowing terms:

“The college does its work alongside a dozen other equally worthy educational institutions, mostly vocational. It does not compete with them; it directly supplements them and incidentally aids them. It has its own aims, which are not immediately practical, vocational, or material.

“I should like to see inscribed over our college portals the following inscription:

“‘Generous Youth! Enter at your peril. We may so quicken your imagination as to bring you loss as the world counts it. There may be a great inventor in you now, there may only be a poet in you when you leave us; the captain of industry in you may give place to some obscure pursuit of philosophy; you are literary, we shall leave you forever incapable of best sellers; you are philanthropic, we may develop the detached critic in you; you are politically shrewd and practical, we may bring out the Utopian visionary in you. For our values are not those of the world of work, with which we can only incidentally help you to make terms--our values are those of the world of thought. We shall make you contemporary of all ages, and since you must after all live in this age, such an extension of your interest and imagination may make you an exile in your own day and place. We offer you no material reward of any sort for your effort here, we may even diminish the rewards you would enjoy if you kept away from us. We offer you nothing but what we ourselves most treasure--the companionship of the great dreamers and thinkers. Enter if you dare. Should you enter, this college will be indeed to you Alma Mater. All that we have shall be yours.’”

In short, the duty of the college is to give its members their intellectual bearings. What the prospective lawyer really needs to broaden his horizon and prevent him from succumbing to the bondage of his shop, is letters, science, mathematics; what the future doctor needs is letters, art, history, and the unbiological sciences. This ought to be the function of the college. To continue along any other line is to destroy forever the Yale that has held such an enviable place in American life for over two centuries--to extinguish the light that has been a source of guidance and inspiration to its large and distinguished band of alumni.

MORRIS TYLER.

_Corydon_

The pleasant hills in solemn silence sleeping Under a sunset of perpetual fire, Past summer’s weeping, Shall know no more the vibrant melody Of thy sad songs, O lovely shepherd boy! The winds are free And chill November Sweeps thy reed music and thy lyric joy Away with all the things I would remember.

The wood-smoke on the silent autumn air, The disconsolate petals on the grass Symbol despair, And all the fragrance of divine Apollo Is fled from this incalculable loss Where none may follow. Is there no rest In the stark shadow of a naked cross In silhouette against the scarlet west?

Shall I forsake philosopher and sage Rebellious drawn From solemn cloister and scholastic page And get me gone. O shepherd of the slender fingers? Guide me above the mountain passes Through the lush grasses Where thy music lingers, Out of nocturnal anguish into dawn.

For I shall sing to thee of Mytelene And ancient things And paint with poppied words a twilight scene Where Lesbos flings Her stretch of Sapphic isle Over the sea. Ah, liquid interlude! We would intrude But for a little while Upon the rapture of ambrosial springs.

This then is all of the enchanted vision Far from the dusty passion of the streets? The world’s derision, The inarticulate call Of ageless things in the awakened woods, Unhappy autumn moods And the wan summons of a grieving fate, Hastening through the twilight pall And beauties vanished, inarticulate?

Let no dim spectres haunt my darkened brain Like aspens whispering at eventide Of ancient pain So oft repeated. I shall flee far from the abysmal night, Not in impetuous flight, But, lingering by Lethe’s tideless void Shall slumber undefeated In sunset woods, forever unannoyed.

LUCIUS BEEBE.

“_The Swift and Sharp-tongued Flame of Death_”

The swift and sharp-tongued flame of death Has touched our hearts. We love no more; No more for us to drink the breath Of life in one long kiss and store Its fragrance ’till we kiss again. All that is gone, and gone our dreams. Remember if you will. The stain Of rich red wine for me, it seems, Is better far than memories. And lest the ghostly perfume smell Too sweet, and life be drowned in seas Like this--I drink and say farewell.