https://egrove.olemiss.edu/studies_eng_new/vol8/iss1/4/

CALVIN DANIEL YOST, JR.
"TEACHER, SCHOLAR, MENTOR, FRIEND"
Benjamin Franklin Fisher IV
University of Mississippi

1990

Within the Ursinus College community, few other persons more genuinely merit an annual Alumni Award for “traits of intellect, character, humanitarian concern and community achievement”—as stated in the letter informing him of his receipt of that honor—than Norman E. McClure Professor of English Emeritus, Calvin D. Yost, Jr. After forty-three years of affiliation with and service to Ursinus, he holds an exceedingly high place in the affections of faculty, staff, and alumni. He holds that high place, moreover, with a great modesty and self-effacingness, characteristics that have made him the respected, admired person he is. Let me say at the outset of this screed that if I manage to embarrass Calvin as he reads through what I’ve written, ’twill be done with not an iota of shame on my part; rather, it will result from his having to recognize, at last, a good deal of the truth about himself. Years ago, I recall him remarking one afternoon in class, in regard to those famous lines by Bums about seeing ourselves as others see us, that most of us could not face such a view. Time’s revenges have overtaken Calvin himself in this respect, and he will now have to take cognizance of another’s opinion. He will, no doubt, rise to the occasion with vigor.

The name of Calvin Yost has been well-known at Ursinus College for the greater part of a century, if one recalls that the combined careers of father and son, each with the same name, span some seventy-five years. And to speak of Calvin D. Yost, Jr. without mentioning his father’s role at the same institution—because of the strong bond of affection which existed between them—would be a great oversight. In 1910 the Reverend Calvin D. Yost (’91), ordained as a clergyman in the German Reformed Church, took up full-time academic duties at Ursinus. In that same year, one March day, Calvin, Jr., was bom, on campus, no less. The Reverend C. D. Yost’s children all number among the graduates of Ursinus College: Merrill (’15) having pursued a career, cut short by his early death, in Classical Studies; Ethelbert (’21), like his father, entering the ministry [and marrying Gladys M. Boorem (’15)]; Margaret (’24) teaching in nearby public schools; and Calvin (’30) receiving a Ph.D. in English at the University of Pennsylvania (1935) and continuing in service to his alma mater. Dr. Yost, Sr., became Professor of German, and he also worked diligently as Librarian of the college for many years. He was also the only person in the history of Ursinus to serve simultaneously as a full-time faculty member and a member of the Board of Directors. As a supply pastor he was also actively engaged in serving needy pulpits in the German Reformed Church (now the United Church of Christ) until the time of his death, in the 1940s.

The apparent digression above will be seen as less of a digression if we remember that the present Dr. Yost, like his father, rose to the rank of Professor, in English rather than in German, and retired, after a distinguished career, in June of 1978. That Calvin should be the first incumbent in the McClure Chair of English is altogether fitting, too, because of his warm friendship with the late president of the College, Professor Norman E. McClure, who was also his former English teacher. Dr. Yost also served as Librarian at Ursinus from 1958 until 1975, guiding the Myrin Library from planning stages through completion. So the careers of Calvin Yost, Sr. and Calvin Yost, Jr. are strikingly similar, and both men contributed significantly to the development of their college in ways that many never realize.

The present Calvin Yost’s ventures into college teaching began at
Ursinus, when he was hired, at the position of Instructor in English, in
1934. He rose rapidly through the ranks, becoming Assistant Professor
in 1938, Associate Professor in 1941, and Professor in 1944. These
were years when it was unusual for one so young to attain the senior
ranks. Chairman of the English Department from 1946 through 1972,
Calvin became McClure Professor in 1964. Ursinus has derived many
other benefits from his talents and labors: He acted as Secretary to the
Faculty from 1947 until 1969, was a member of the Library
Committee (1946-1975), of the Academic Council (1947-1969), of the
Committee of Admissions and Standing (1954-1969), and of the Forum
Committee (1954-1969). He served, too, on these other committees:
Student Publications, Corps Curriculum, Presidential Selection, and
Evaluation of the College by Middle States Association. He was
advisor to the Weekly (the campus newspaper), the Lantern (the Ursinus
literary magazine), the Manuscript Club, the English Club, and the
Religion on Campus Committee of the Christian Association., He was
Secretary-Treasurer of the Alumni Association (1936-1942), edited the
Alumni Register in 1948, and edited several of the college’s catalogues.
He authored the sketch, “Ursinus College,” that appears in all bulletins
for commencement and Founders’ Day ceremonies. He also represented
Ursinus on “University of the Air” with weekly poetry classes (1949-
1952). His History of Ursinus College: The First Hundred Years, a
labor of love and scholarship, was published in 1985. For nearly thirty
years he was employed by the Educational Testing Service for several
types of English examinations. Also, for a good many years, he was a
regular contributor of reviews to the United States Quarterly Review.
That Dr. Yost has had an active career is not to be questioned, and such
activity would stagger many another. Ursinus recognized his long years
of service in conferring upon him the Litt D. in 1973. More recently,
he has ably assisted the substantialness of UMSE (consenting to serve
on the original Advisory Board and evaluating manuscripts since 1979);
thanks to him, we have maintained high quality in our publications,
most notably in Victorian poetry and American literature.

Calvin Yost is remembered as a teacher non pareil of English
language, composition, and literature, and it was in this capacity that he
first attracted my attention, years ago, during Fall-Term registration. I
supposed, seeing him enter the English Department office, that a
particularly well-dressed student had run up the steps to assist faculty
members with counseling and registering new students. What a jolt to
discover that this agile, youthful man was none other than the
department chairman himself. No such misconception occurred shortly
afterward when the snowy-haired teacher of Shakespeare, then Professor
Emeritus of English and President Emeritus of the College, Dr.
McClure, appeared and walked, with stately step, into the office.

Although Dr. Yost’s first book surveyed poetic trends in Cave’s
Gentleman’s Magazine, an important British periodical during the
eighteenth century, his teaching has ranged widely, through American
to broader areas of World literature. Nor did many a semester of his
eighty-six pass without his teaching at least one class in Freshman
English. In these classes students went through their paces, generally
to become far better writers than they had been when the term
commenced. Instituting courses in Drama and the Novel, which years
ago were among the largest in the college, Calvin soon took over
American Literature, previously offered by Dr. McClure (who followed
the pattern of teaching Shakespeare and American Literature established
by his own renowned professor, Fred Lewis Pattee). The American
Literature survey remained a customary Yost course until Calvin’s
retirement. Professor Yost believed that classes should read, and read
they did; during the first semester of American Literature, in addition to
a two-volume anthology, in which little was skipped, great extra
assignments of Poe’s and Hawthorne’s short stories, plus The Sketch
Book, Walden, The Scarlet Letter, Moby-Dick, and a novel by Henry
James expanded the students’ horizons. During the second semester,
one had to read all of the works by a twentieth-century writer as the
groundwork for a term paper topic. Other Yost lit. classes included
similar reading loads (and they were considered fun).

At this juncture, we move once again into realms of the eighteenth
century. In a course in the non-fictional prose of that period, readings
from neo-classic writers and their successors were the assignments, and
Dr. Yost guided students through the pertinent biographies, styles, and
theories. In particular, I can recall learning that Addison’s paragraphs
were customarily longer than Steele’s, and that thus one could
distinguish who wrote what in their collaborative writing. This course
extended into another semester, during which nineteenth-century non
fiction prose artists, from Lamb through Stevenson, were the subjects
discussed. Two more popular Yost classes were those in Romantic and
Victorian poetry, which he taught for many years. Calvin ably charted
students through the spacious, and often unpredictable, seas of
nineteenth-century British verse, with a love and enthusiasm that has
inspired many of us to continue in these areas as parts of our own
teaching specialties. For many years his Seminar in Poetry for senior
English majors afforded students a forum to think about and analyze
poetic artistry and techniques—with opportunities, like those of George
Eliot’s Mrs. Poyser, to “have their say out” about such matters. The
Yost devotion to British poetry also helped in a pinch during Dr.
McClure’s last illness, when Calvin gallantly undertook to captain a
class through the waters of Renaissance non-dramatic verse. That this
“captain” has continued energetic, even when off the “quarter-deck,” has
not been doubted in any mind.

Calvin’s classroom manner was certain to engage a spectrum of
students, not just those who majored in English. Believing that
literature is created by human beings, Dr. Yost always offered abundant,
delightful and significant biographical details about individual authors.
He also imparted considerable information in regard to the more general
milieu of an era or a particular school or movement of literary endeavor.
Having frequently shocked students with information about some
especially earthy point in Byron biography (in an age, of course, when
college students were usually more timorous than they are at present),
for example, he would proceed to “make you see” (in the sense intended
by Conrad in the “preface” to The Nigger of the Narcissus) simply by
his reading aloud of portions of the material. Tennyson, Keats,
Swinburne (not a personal favorite with Calvin, but a poet to whom
his attention has been repeatedly drawn because of a former student’s
persuasion toward that author), Dickinson, and Frost, to choose but a
few examples, came alive by means of the soft-spoken, but compelling
voice at the front of the classroom. Students came away with
impressions that Dr. Yost “had read everything”—and remembered
everything. His classes were stimulated to go and do likewise, all for
great enjoyment.

For many years, almost no student could go through Ursinus
College without enrolling in at least one Yost course. For most of
those years Calvin maintained a standard rostering of five classes each
semester—with no graders and no true-or-false exams. The quantity of
papers he evaluated is staggering to contemplate. Calvin’s enrollees
evince long-time powers of recall when they come to recollecting his
classes. At the 1977 Alumni-Day festivities, to cite an example, a
person who had been in one of Calvin’s earliest classes quoted to him
lines—which the professor quickly remembered were from Keats’s “The
Eve of St. Agnes” and Masefield’s “Biography.” Not bad on either side,
after several decades. Another telling analogy immediately suggests
itself, one with Emerson’s “Man Thinking,” that thinker possessed of
original vital intellect—precisely what the subject of this screed has
always conveyed.

A Yost exam was quite another experience for those being
entertained by its contents—one that demanded plenty. Dr. Yost
expected his classes to master not merely facts, but to know what to do
with them. His exam questions aimed to discover what students knew,
not what they didn’t He allowed all sorts of creativity, so long as it
was backed up by a thoughtful reading knowledge. In a word, this man
demonstrated in living embodiment just what a true “Doctor of Humane
Letters” is. So that no reader will suspect me of over-sentimentality, I
place on record here something of a less lofty aspect about exams and
other papers turned in to Dr. Yost Back they would eventually come,
with comments in the inevitable red pencil. But the handwriting
betrayed no mastery of any of the time-honored penmanship methods
taught while Calvin himself was pursuing a course through elementary
grades (The present writer is only too willing to admit his own
deficiencies on this score.). After much labor, one could finally realize
that the instructor’s reading of student work was careful, thoughtful, and
fair. Typically, the Yost sense of humor would crop up in these
commentaries in red. In combination with the foregoing characteristics,
students felt that their own studies had been worthwhile. Professor
Yost had that inspiring method (so fine that we never thought of it as
method) of persuading students to read more, to write effectively, and to
conduct responsible research, because he whetted their appetites for
reading and writing.

The public professor and the personal human being merge within
the personality of Calvin Yost in spheres other than those restricted to
academe. Proud of his Pennsylvania Dutch heritage, he is a loyal,
active member of the Pennsylvania German Society. He and his wife
have engaged in genealogical pursuits, which led them to the boondocks
of Schuylkill County, Pa., where one of Calvin’s ancestors once
operated a grain and flour mill, and where the remains of still others
repose in the old cemetery at McKeansburg. The Yosts made
significant contributions to a recently published history of Montgomery
County, Pennsylvania. Calvin’s interests have included the
Philadelphia Literary Fellowship and Philobiblon, where he inevitably
encountered another Pennsylvania Dutchman, “Cousin” George Allen,
the well-known head of the Philadelphia firm of William H. Allen,
whose shelves of books “Cousin” Calvin has often recommended to
those in the process of building their personal libraries. Recalling the
“humanitarian concern and community achievement” phraseology in the
Alumni-Award letter, mentioned above, let us notice Calvin’s
accomplishments of some other “out-of-school” varieties. A true son
of the German Reformed Church, he has supported his local church’s
activities faithfully, in such roles as choirister, teacher, and
consistoryman. Although I can not recollect him chasing fire engines,
as I can recollect others doing during my years in Collegeville, Calvin
was a longtime member of the town’s volunteer fire company. He is
also proud of being a Past Master of the Warren Lodge of the
Pennsylvania F. & A. M., and for many years he appeared as a featured
speaker in Masonic gatherings there and elsewhere.

Remembering that bond between charity and domesticity, we
should not ignore Calvin’s home life; as a husband, father, grandfather,
and friend Calvin Yost is hard to beat. Visitors to 33 6th Avenue are
always cordially welcomed. To speak of Calvin without speaking also
of Elizabeth Yost, his wife, is unthinkable. She has encouraged and
assisted him, their family and friends as well, without stint. We must
not forget that she, too, is a former Ursinus faculty member, having
given her efforts to good evening-school teaching. Her hospitality is
something else to bear in mind. Whether it be her entertaining dinner
parties— even those at which she undid the rules of the college relevant
to alcohol by serving her unsuspecting guests beef roasted in beer—or
her adept supplying of refreshment to a late traveller passing through
Collegeville, she is a gracious hostess. She has contributed mightily
toward whatever might be worthwhile in this sketch. Like her husband,
she is thoroughly attached to Ursinus College and its people.

Calvin and Elizabeth have added to the numbers of alumni, too,
with daughters Betsy (’63) and Susan (’66) figuring among Ursinus
honor students (Ellen cheated by heading for the University of
Delaware). The Yost grandchildren have also become great favorites
with their grandparents. Although Calvin is very much a family-
oriented individual, he has perhaps realized another blessing in relation
to the marriages of his children. Because they are no longer at home for
long periods of time, he has long since ceased to fret about the woman-
dominated household to which he had to return at the close of each
college day—or so he used to inform his classes, many years ago.

To conclude, I must draw on the words of another to epitomize my
own thoughts. In Charles E. Ward’s The Life of John Dryden (1961),
the dedication opens: “To Paull Franklin Baum, Teacher, scholar,
mentor, friend.” These tributes might also, and quite justly, be paid to
Calvin Yost. Always willing and eager to learn, to teach, and, as well,
to be a friend, he stands as a person well worth knowing.