The Student Vagabond

They were excited and mildly surprised, but the vagabond felt that they had not yet had time to realize the full meaning of President Lowell's retirement. Time is an inexorable Juggernaut in the path of which none can stand; yet to some it seemed far too soon. There is so much that is well begun remaining yet to be finished, and the hand that sketched the outline can best wield the brush for the finishing strokes. These are the practical and trite considerations with which the Vagabond rationalizes his wish that the great man might have remained at the helm just a little longer.

There are other reasons, too. There is Phantom and the daily stroll about Cambridge. There is the almost traditional manner of mounting stairs, two steps at a time, and double quick. There is a vignette still vivid in the Vagabond's memory of a scholarly gentleman stepping out of the range of cameras. And a letter not yet grown musty in an undergraduate's drawer is a striking witness to the surprise of a student in an other college who had heard of the President's dining informally with undergraduates in Dunster House. Truly, the Vagabond is more interested in men than in facts and theories.

This is no time for epitaphs, but even so the Vagabond believes that Harvard's loss is thereby the greater. There is a limbo into which men drop when they retire, though they are possessed of everything which made them capable in the days of their greatness and activity. The battles yet to be fought are many, and it would be more heartening to have the commandor in charge. Yet the battles which have been won are the most important. St. monumentum requires, circumspice.