1923: O Kind, Firm Moulder

John Knox Jessup '24 penned the words to the school's alma mater as a poem, which then music teacher Richard F. Donovan put to music. Jessup's English teacher first suggested that the poem would make a "fine school song." Donovan and fellow faculty member George Morgan both said they'd "give it a try for the music. Mine couldn't compare with his," Morgan told the Taft Bulletin. The Glee Club entered a competition in New York that year, sponsored by the Intercollegiate Musical Council, at which they sang the new composition (along with two other pieces) and came home with the first-place cup. Donovan went on to Yale the following year, where he became dean of the school of music. Musical tastes change, however, and by the 1970s Donovan's composition was declared "unsingable."

Alma Mater

1
O kind, firm moulder of a thousand boys
Mother of destinies, dear, lovely place,
Where glamourous beauty dwells and unguessed joys
Give work and play an unsuspected grace.

2
How like a little city, beauty clad,
You stand in ivied loveliness and charm;
Beholding you the the student's heart is glad;
He goes secure to your enfolding arm.

3
Here have the gleaming years of youth been spent.
These halls have been a home to us in long
Days carefree, rich with open wonderment,
Till now we sing a retrospective song.

4
Our mutual joys, our friendly loves and hates,
Our common cheets, this consort in sweet song,
The games of youth, the learning love creates,
Shall all return to us some years along .

5
And they shall seem to us in that far day
Like unforeseen, fond meetings with old friends—
With kindly peace shall bear our grief away,
And help us home with Hope that Memory sends.

6
Into the world with fearless step and free
We soon shall pass. In these propitious days
The torch is lit. God give us grace that we
May bear that glorious light long, long ablaze.

—John K. Jessup '24