Remarks of Judge Charles E. Clark

Abstract

Teaching, I find, is a disease of the most insidious character; once exposed to it, recovery is virtually impossible. Although time is fast working its corrective, I have actually spent more of my life in this occupation than in any other; that is my choicest memory and my proudest boast. Even now, I succumb regularly to the virus, and, like an old fire-horse, return for periods of law teaching in vacation time or other judicial breathing spells. Today in fact I would have been teaching a first-year law class at Yale had I not deemed your claims presently paramount. Thus when your invitation gave me the privilege of being a participant in a milestone of educational progress, the dedication of a fine new hall of learning, I could not fail to respond. And this occasion was for me all the more compelling, since it meant a dream come true for my old and cherished friend Paul Andrews, for years the heart and center of this School, as well as a new point of departure and opportunity for my brilliant former pupil, Dean Kharas, and his able faculty. To be here to share with you the joys of the occasion is alone adequate pleasure and recompense; but you have added to it all by your overflowing generosity in making me one of you, as indeed a fellow alumnus, as I have claimed in my opening remarks. This honor, which I can deserve only as representative of a court of rich traditions in this state and circuit, I accept humbly and gratefully in the spirit in which it is given and I thank you from the bottom of my heart.