Cornell Alumni News - eCommons@Cornell - Cornell University

and as the home of Prof. Harry Caplan."
The second story that shows Harry
to be a myth is one he tells on himself.
Francis E. Mineka, the Class of 1916
professor of English, related it at the
dinner. An old grad approaches Professor
Caplan at Reunion. "You were the
best teacher I ever had." Poking Caplan
in the stomach he insists, "Go ahead,
try me. Ask me a question in Spanish."
For a teacher of the ancient languages,
that was no kind poke, at all.
Herbert Snyder '16 let the audience
in on the fact Harry Caplan was the
youngest save one of his Cornell class,
and was a member of the class flag rush
team. Harry had come to the university
on a "truly competitive" state scholarship
that was settled only after a sevenhour
examination. Harry was junior Phi
Beta Kappa, and winner of the '86 Declamation
Prize as an undergraduate. His
class held such an outrageous five-year
Reunion that in 1921 the University
Faculty voted never to allow another
Reunion during term time. Harry was,
however, clearly exempt from any guilt
in this particular performance, having
been, and continuing to be, a teetotaler.
Snyder noted Harry was one of nine
members of the Class of 1916 to serve
on the Cornell faculty, among whom
Van B. Hart, agricultural economics,
emeritus, and Herbert A. Wichelns,
speech and drama, emeritus, were present.
"Speaking for the class," Snyder
concluded, "we are especially proud that
you personify Cicero . . . 'the whole
merit of virtue lies in its practice.' "
Provost Dale R. Corson and Professor
Mineka between them put flesh on the
outline of the Caplan biography, noting
that Harry has been associated with
Cornell fifty-four of its ninety-nine years
—1912-16 as an undergraduate, 1916-18
as a graduate student, and as a teacher
since he was appointed an instructor in
1919. He.received the AM in 1917 and
the PhD in 1920. For seventeen of his
forty-eight years on the faculty, he
served as chairman of the Department of
Classics, "and he still has more juice
than many colleagues half his age."
"He was one of the first to be awarded
a Guggenheim," Mineka said. "He had
his sojourn in a 'think tank,' at Wesley
an; recognition, as president of the
American Philological Society and as a
fellow of the Mediaeval Academy of
America. This was not a record achieved
by sacrificing standards of the older
code. He has not even had a secretary,
never hidden from his students or his
colleagues. He has not avoided the elementary
courses. I expect his favorite is
his 'Baby Greek' course. He has never
lost his sense of humor, his - students
remember him as a person interested in
them.
"His life at Cornell proves not only
that there is no necessary antithesis between
teaching and research—the two
enrich each other—but there is no necessary
antithesis between loyalty to one's
academic discipline and one's institution.
We are expressing not only our
affection to you as a man, but to those
ideals by which you live."
The final non-speaker was a Cornell
AB-AM-PhD, Prof. Helen F. North '42,
chairman of the Department of Classics
at Swarthmore College, a former student
of Caplan's. She told how he had raised
her academic sights, and how many of
his students owed so much to the advice,
encouragement and challenge he had
given them in his office, 121 Goldwin
Smith—with its smell of tobacco, leather
bindings, old masters' theses, and dust.
She told of his reputation in the
academic world for loyalty to his old
students. Referring to his recommenda-
Prof. Caplan thanks audience
tions for the granting of research awards,
she said "he has the well deserved record
of never losing a Guggenheim." "Loyalty
is at the top of his list." "Those not here
tonight wrote to express the same . . .
affection and admiration."
Professor Caplan concluded the formal
informal part of the evening very briefly
and graciously; "refraining from Ciceronia,"
saying "I add my warmest
thanks for what you all have done me
by lending your gracious presence here
tonight."
Being sure the NEWS'S letters to the
editor are legitimate requires constant attention.
One such letter arrived a while
back postmarked Syracuse, short, crisply
done, commenting on the Trojan Horse
incident of January. It bore an apparently
innocent signature, that of HUGO N.
FRYE π '38": If it hadn't arrived early in
the day, it might have gotten through.
Hugo N. Frye I was a hoax perpetrated
by two of the Cornell Daily Sun's
Berry Patch editors of the late 1920s.
Morris Bishop '14 describes the Frye
testimonial these editors arranged, to
honor "the little-know patroit . . . whose
slogans, such as 'Freedom in the land of
the free.' led to the formation of the
Republican Party," (Pages 495 and 496
of Bishop's A History of Cornell.)
In judging the latest letter, we worked
on the assumption the son of a hoax is
just possibly also a hoax. No one in particular
is suspected of siring HUGO π, but
a television newsman in Syracuse may
be in a position to help explain.
Back in the late 1940s the Sun editor
would from time to time receive unusually
well written letters to the editor,
comments on the passing campus scene.
They were signed by one JUSTIN CASE.
The writing style bore a striking resemblence
to that of the late Prof. Bristow
Adams, mentor of a long line of Cornell
writers and journalists. When faced with
the coincidence of styles, he neither admitted
nor denied a thing. He just smiled.
A brief postcard from Capt. R. L.
Wing, Box 186, 10 TRW, APO N.Y.
09238 urges, ". . . please—would you do
us overseas Cornellians a favor? In our
military addresses, the ZIP code number
is a must. No ZIP code means several
weeks delay plus lost Issues. And tell the
class secretaries, too—their lack of ZIP
does us a disservice."
—JM
Letters
Not So Different
EDITOR: As an alumna who has done her
graduate work and begun college teaching
in the shadows of that other great university,
that of California at Berkeley, I
was quite amused by the Deweys letter and
the earnest one from Robert Holstead III
which followed it [April NEWS]. If Cornell
were the Berkeley of the East, I doubt that
we'd need to hang our heads.
If Mr. Holstead's crew has half the spirit
he had in his day—which is about over and
that's what is eating him I imagine—he is
Cornell Alumni News