Though love repine and reason chafe,

There comes a voice without reply,

'Tis now perdition to be safe,

When for the truth we ought to die.

In a speech delivered upon the College's acceptance of his gift, Higginson told how the poet, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, used to delight in looking from his window at the beautiful marshes across the River, covered with wooded hills and streams.

Princeton is Not Wicked

Higginson said in his speech: "And just here let me, a layman, say a word to you experts in athletic sports. You come to college to learn things of great value beside your games, which after all are secondary to your studies.

"But in your games there is just one thing you cannot do even to win success. You cannot do one tricky or shabby thing. Translate tricky and shabby--dishonest, ungentlemanlike. (Princeton is not wicked: Yale is not base.)

"Mates, the Princeton and Yale fellows are our brothers. Let us beat them fairly if we can, and believe that they will play the game just as we do."

Soldiers' Feild was put to immediate use and became the scene of Harvard's athletic contests. A battered wooden grandstand was used to accommodate spectators.

But at the turn of the century agitation mounted among Harvard alumni to replace the stands with something more permanent. The Transcript echoed alumni sentiment when it said, in March 1903:

Fire Hazard

"The present grandstands on Soldiers' Field are not alone decidedly ugly, but positively dangerous, and the very sight of a piece of fire apparatus behind the stands at a big football game has made many persons timid."

The danger from the old stands was highlighted early in 1903 when a section of the wooden bleachers at Soldiers' Field caught fire and was demolished during a Harvard-Princeton baseball game. Fortunately, no one was injured.

The Class of 1879 was the moving spirit behind the agitation for a new seating system. Originally, the Class had offered to donate its 25th anniversary gift for the construction of new wooden stands. But Professor Ira N. Hollis, Chairman of the Harvard Athletic Committee, had more ambitions plans--he would build a permanent areus. The Class of 1879 was delighted with the bold ideas.