A few days ago, I read in one of the Madison papers that
a memorial for Wisconsin students and faculty members in
service has been dedicated. This brought to mind an incident
which I saw last year, and which I doubt very much if many besides
myself saw.
In the spring of 1917, I was living beside the lower campus,
and soon grew accustomed to the commotion around there,
and to look upon the demonstrations which took place there
as the natural expressions of the student body. To the lower
campus, they brought their joys and their sorrows; it was the
true center from whence all student feeling radiated.
In the early morning of the day on which war broke out, I
awoke, and going to a window, saw a bonfire burning in the
center of the campus. Marching solemnly around the fire,
was a small group of university men. They stopped. There was
scarcely a sound. There they stood bearing aloft the stars and
stripes, and as I listened, I could hear them pledging themselves
to their country in the stillness of the night. Then they sang
America, the Star Spangled Banner, and dispersed as quietly as
they had gathered.
The sight was a very beautiful and impressive one; it is
something that I will never forget. I knew when I saw it that
war
had broken out, and I also knew what my part and the part
of many other mothers would be. At my window, after the dear
lads on campus, I pledged my all to my country, as they had done.
Many of our boys are now in France, and some of them have already
made the supreme sacrifice. The university is doing its part,
and doing it nobly. It has done so from the moment when that
little group of men met under the starry dome of Heaven, God's
great service flag, in the hour when the news of war reached
Madison, and with their faces uplifted, pledged themselves to
the cause. That was the real enlistment of the university in
the service.