Brown Men

At Brown University one evening last week, in oldtime Sayles Memorial Hall where chapel is held, some 1,000 graduates gathered to sit on couches and chairs brought in to make them feel like "just one big family." Master of ceremonies was Everett Colby, '97, Manhattan lawyer. He introduced one of whom all there had heard, his classmate Alumnus John Davison Rockefeller Jr. Alumnus Colby said that Alumnus Rockefeller "runs a gas station somewhere down near New York" and assured the gathered company that "John would be pleased to meet any member of the alumni who needs a million dollars. . . . All you have to do is just go up and slap him on the back and tell him just what you want." In an expansive mood, Alumnus Rockefeller accepted the position of counsel for the defense of a fellow alumnus nine college years his senior--Dr. Clarence Augustus Barbour, who lately resigned as President of Colgate-Rochester Divinity School. Dr. Barbour, who was present, was shortly to be inducted as Brown's new president, her tenth in 166 years. The alumni were "trying" him on the charges: 1) "that he wanted to abolish lipstick at Pembroke College [women's part of the university]"; 2) "that he wanted to make Brown an institution where youth could receive an education." Alumnus Rockefeller said: "I'm always glad to be called upon to defend any man against a lawyer. Lawyers, you know, are supposed to spend all their time settling the troubles of other people. I spend most of my time trying to settle with my lawyers. Now if Dr. Barbour really did say that a college is a place for study, what is the harm? If he wants to do something new along educational lines, let him do it. There never lived a finer, manlier man than Dr. Barbour. . . . Despite obstacles, where others fall by the wayside, he goes steadily forward--and with a smile though his back may be breaking. . . . If the men of Brown become like Dr. Barbour in the next ten years, the imprint of the university on time will be epochal." In answering the lipstick charge, Dr. Barbour told a story which ended: "I'm the chap who has to eat it." The other charge he admitted, saying: "Scholars should be in the saddle at college. . . . By the grace of God I will give you all I have. . . ." Two days later, down a precipitous, cobblestoned little street in Providence, moved a stately stream of men and women, capped, gowned, uniformed. They had to dig in their heels, so as to proceed with the gravity the occasion demanded, and tortuously descended from Brown's campus to the First Baptist Meeting House ("built for public worship and to hold commencements in") midway down College Hill. This was the formal part of Dr. Barbour's induction.

First in the procession was Sheriff Jonathan Andrews of Providence County, resplendent in top hat, evening dress, a bright blue ribbon across his starched shirt front, a sword knocking at his side. Since 1790 this has been the Brown custom on such occasions. After the Sheriff came a faculty member bearing the university's golden mace, not so old a custom, the mace having been acquired two years ago. Dr. Barbour and Chancellor Arnold Buffum Chace came next. Close behind was Dr. Abbott Lawrence Lowell, for without a Harvard President present, no Brown President has ever taken office. Under the U. S. and Rhode Island flags, further back in the line, strode Governor Norman Stanley Case (Brown 1908) surrounded by his staff. Followed many a statesman, jurist and nearly three-score college presidents. There were Cornell's Farrand, Yale's Angell, Union's Day, Rhode Island's Alger ; also Charles Evans Hughes (Brown 1881), Mr. Rockefeller Jr. and President Emeritus William Herbert Perry Faunce, about whom a similar to-do was made 30 years ago when he entered an administration which outlasted all others begun at the turn of the century. At the Meeting House, Brown under graduates heard Harvard's Lowell, the principal speaker, observe that the college problem lies "in part in eliminating those who are unable or unwilling to make the effort and make it fruitfully." All good Brown men were proud to hear President Barbour modestly proclaim: "Brown yields to her sisters only: Harvard, William & Mary, Yale, the University of Pennsylvania, Princeton and Columbia."