EDITORIAL

We present to our readers in this number some of the more notable utterances of a noteworthy Commencement season. The President's baccalaureate is memorable among a long series of such excellent sermons; the oration before Phi Beta Kappa has the biting phrases of a man in earnest; the timely speeches from Alumni night will be especially prized by all who did not hear them; and the address by Mrs. Howe, suggesting so wide an outlook on affairs in so brief a space, puts the fitting crow upon our record of the time.

The season was exceptional also in respect of the bronze tablet in commemoration of Professor Brown, and the oil portrait of President Capen-both placed in Goddard Chapel. The painting, by Darius Cobb, is the gift of a few friends of the President, who wish thus to hang where all may see a presentment of his outward person and his inner dignity. reproduce this picture as our frontispiece.

We

It is always pleasant to know that the words of any Tufts graduate have awakened sounding echoes. The article by Professor Knight on "The New Hell," briefly described elsewhere in this issue, was the subject of full editorial comment in the Boston Transcript, July 11 (reprinted in the Universalist Leader for July 23). A correspondent of the Transcript appeared July 16, partially agreeing with Dr. Knight, but asking in conclusion two searching questions. These questions Dr. Knight answered in the same paper, July 20, adding some suggestive observations. Meanwhile, the New York Evening Mail of July 9 gave a half-column synopsis of the article. All of which goes to show that "The New Hell" is a living subject. We have confidence in the ability of the writer to hold his ground against all comers.

THE TUFTS COLLEGE GRADUATE

VOL. II

No. 3

OCTOBER, 1904

MY CLIMBS IN A NEW SWITZERLAND

In the intimacy of the family one is free to speak of himself and his causes for self-congratulation; and so, in this article for the eyes of my fellow alumni, what if I speak right out?

I am glad that I graduated from Tufts College at the time they were casting about for someone to take charge of an independent department of modern languages, to grow up with it and the still young college. Untrammeled pioneer work always had a charm for me. Again I am glad that, by the time the title of professor was coming to be recognized as belonging to me, the meeting was called out of which grew the Appalachian Mountain Club, and that- thanks no doubt to my title I was invited to preside at it and later elected upon the new society's first executive board with men whom to know thus intimately was equivalent to a valuable graduate course. Not only this, but to my more than quarter-century connection with this valuable society I owe a wealth of happy and profitable experiences in the out-of-door world that enables me to view without envy the accumulations of all Carnegies and Rockefellers.

And how lucky for me that, after my feet and lungs had got their training on a couple of score of New Hampshire hills and a choice selection of Colorado and Californian rock peaks, a new Switzerland, virgin and undeveloped, should be heralded to the world, and oft-repeated access almost miraculously opened for me into an alpine world in which for the first time I reveled in a kind of climbing worthy of the name, where head and finger

tips are quite as important for success as the members hitherto my main dependence.

It was not until 1888 that we began to hear of the Selkirks and Canadian Rockies. In 1890 two of my young Swiss friends climbed Sir Donald, regarded then as a feat of no mean order -a climb not repeated for nine years, though now made frequently every season. That was the year of my first visit to this wonderful region. The next came in 1894, and since then but a single year has passed that has not found me there with near friends, seeking fresh peaks to climb and incidentally exploring new or little known valleys. The story of our doings and our pleasures has seen the light on the pages of Appalachia, until that magazine has gained recognition as perhaps the chief repository of detailed information touching the geography and topography of the Canadian Alps.

Naturally no insignificant list of peaks is that of our first ascents they comprise the highest and doubtless the most difficult of those whose bases are within a few days' access of the railway. Of those above 11,000 feet my own list of "firsts" includes Victoria, Lefroy, Hector, and Goodsir in the Rockies, and Dawson, the highest thus far measured of the Selkirk range. Lesser than these, though still above 10,000 feet, are several more that it has been my privilege to set foot upon first since their creation. So rich was the field that until recently a peak already conquered had little of allurement. Thus it was not

until the present season that I cared to climb the superb Mt. Temple (11,627 ft.), convenient of approach and, next to Mt. Goodsir (11,671 ft.), the highest peak visible from the line of the Canadian Pacific Railway. This and another peak in close proximity (of peculiar personal interest, since the Geographic Board of Canada has done me the great honor to attach my name to it) and my third traversing of the glorious Abbot Pass comprise my brief list of alpine climbs for the season of 1904.

By a peculiar combination of circumstances I lost the privilege