The annual Memorial Day exercises were held in Sanders Theatre at noon yesterday, after a short prayer service in Memorial Transept. The exercises were opened with a prayer by Rev. George Hodges, after which the Glee Club and audience joined in singing "Fair Harvard." M. Donald 2L. as presiding officer introduced the speaker, R. C. Bolling 2L.

He began by explaining that although it may seem somewhat strange that a man not a contemporary of those Harvard men who fell in the Civil War should be chosen to deliver an address commemorative of their deeds, it is, after all, fitting that the tribute from Harvard to Harvard men should come directly from the University,--in this and in succeeding years from men who are still a part of Harvard undergraduate life.

Those men who went to war from Harvard in 1861 were young men, like the students of today. Fresh from the influence of the University, they were going out to the careers which opened up before them, with high ideals and with ardent hopes. Yet before what they believed to be the call of duty, they sacrificed all that lay before them, unquestioningly and cheerfully.

There should be no note of sadness in services commemorating them. They faced their duty manfully and answering a call that seemed to them to come from God. The spirit of all the 117 Harvard men who died for the Union cause was the same; its keynote was fidelity and unfailing, cheerful courage.

The proportion of Southern men at Harvard was greater in 1861 than it is now. Harvard men from Virginia, and Alabama, and from all the South, believing in the sovereignty of their states, went back to join the Confederate army,--and their names Harvard has forgotten. Let Northern men believe the Southerners' judgment to be mistaken, but let them never doubt their faithfulness, nor their valor in the cause to which they gave their lives.

Again in 1898 Harvard men went to war. Fewer enlisted than in 1861, because the need was less and the duty not so plain. But those who went, in the fever camps of Chicamauga or in the battles in Cuba, did their duty with a faithfulness of which Harvard may be proud.

The public record of Harvard men has been brilliant, and the record from 1861 to 1865 most brilliant of all. Yet the country needs faithful service in peace as well as in war, and Harvard men are unfaithful to the traditions of their predecessors if, as citizens, they do not array themselves against every from of injustice, selfishness and corruption in the state. Faithful citizenship involves sacrifices which are often too small to be appreciated and yet too large and frequent to be cheerfully borne, but through such sacrifices Harvard men may show the faithful patriotism which other Harvard men have shown before.