Norman Hall's Great Memory Youth is so splendid that it is strange we older ones who live close to its beauty and might sense the delicacy and marvel of it, while the precious drama is being enacted, hardly know how fine it is. Now that Norman Hall has disappeared from human eyes, Yale and his campus mates are trying to put into words the excellence, the manliness, the idealism of this athlete and undergraduate who, in his strength and grace, and even more in his unselfish, winning ways looked the part of a Knight of the Round Table. There is great appreciation of the boy. His home was a small place in New Jersey. It does not appear that he was a child of fortune like many collegians who no less fill the eye when given the signal to sacrifice. Hall was working his way through college, doing manual tasks, in order to defray his expenses. He was a universal favorite. The distinctive thing about him as a campus figure was, it is true, his athletic prowess. He brought a reputation with him of his "fiting school" as is the way (such emphasis is laid ion excellence in sports) and he became an outstanding member of the Yale eleven and a track man of super-rank. Boys who can do these things have a tremendous fascination these days, not only for the crowd but for great numbers who see in their force, energy, determination and control the making of the manhood that the world needs. Young Hall had these qualities and was an exponent of them in every motion. There is at Yale what is known as the Gorden Brown prize. In establishing it there was the intent to magnify just this type of character and leadership. There is a series of saying about youth: the world lies at its feet, it is invincible and will be served. That "youth is always right" carries a profound truth, referring to the clarity of its perception and the unimpeded directness of its honest impulses. Norman Hall was one of those natural, unspoiled boys whose innocence and manly outlook on every situation and frank, clear eye rebuke the calculating spirit of maturity and speak the fresher message of those recent from truth's source. Such are in touch with the sacred mysteries, even of childhood, whose familiar are love, purity and the unclouded vision. It was fitting that he died a hero's death, he belongs to an immortal fraternity. Hall's sacrifice to save another was characteristic - a brilliant, unreckoning, self-effacing plunge - a handsome act, infinitely precious, according with the traditions of youth and a challenge to Yale men of every degree. It should steel thousands who knew him to like endeavor on a hundred fields of aspiration. It is not for athletes alone. The shyeat student will kindle under the great deed. Civic courage, higher social standards among youth, the trophies of self-conquest are related to the sacrifice of Norman Hall. He spoke the countersign of the finest manhood and it remains to those like him on the threshold, to cry back "Adsum!" - "present"; "I hear and I follow!" --- (Vernon has written "Editorial by Amos Wilder - 1/3/29" at the bottom.) [Return to 12/30/1928](1928_12_30.md) <img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/d/117iEhcMsLnGQAlJ8Xx8DR6hJrKl6zTub"> <img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/d/1mbxo7XViM6X3O6eboOHhfSwRAI6T3KAI">