Davidson College - Quips and Cranks Yearbook (Davidson, NC)

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year ' s crop. On the Saturday night before commence- ment the spirit of Sophomority tore the class of ' 95, and as the evil spirit of old went into the swine, this one went into the class of ' 96, which immediately rushed into the ocean. They were not drowned, however, for they were tossed out by the indignant fish, who refused to cohabitate with such compounds as Freshmen imbued with the spirit of Sophomores. After vacation we returned forty-three strong, still the largest class in college. When we were Freshmen we had tasted success in athletics, then we polished the diamond with the class of ' 94. In the session ' 92-93 we had also put several victories to our credit. But never, during our college course, has there been such an athletic zeal as there was during the fall of ' 93. Football carried every- thing before it, and of course the class of ' 95 carried the football. We were very partial to the number twelve that year. When we played the Freshmen 12 too favor ' 95 was written across the score card. Not long after this we played the Sophomores to the tune of 12 to o, also ; and since we could not arrange a game with the seniors we closed the year with the honor of being the only class against which no team had scored a point. Athletic day, in the spring of ' 94, was as honorably gone through with as the football season had been. Although his opponents had magic slippers and winged feet, our indomitable Cicero won the cham- pionship for ' 95 by winning the highest number of events. Ninety-five did not confine her efforts to athletics during this year, however, as her success would seem to indicate. She placed on the boards a minstrel troupe that surprised and delighted every audience before which they showed. The actors were Mattie and Goat, end men, Cromo, manager, and Henry, Soul, Fox, Frank, W. W. (alias Lightning-rod) and Ham, sub-stars. This entertainment, given the Fri- day night before Maxwell Chambers Day, was one of the many new departures which have been made by the class of ' 95, and with which the world is already so familiar. This, our junior year, though, with all its successes and victories, is darkened by a cloud that almost hides the brightness of the otherwise happy session. When we returned from the Christmas holidays, happy, light-hearted and careless, each student was chilled by the unusual quiet and surprised by seeing so many sad faces. With tearful eye and kindly accent each whispered to his neighbor, ' ' Goetchius is dead. ' ' He had been at college only four months, having entered a Junior, and in that time had won respect from every mind and carved his name in the innermost recesses of every heart. A rose had been dropped into our midst and crushed, leaving a sweetness in the air that still pervades it. Its leaves we laid carefully away in a sacred spot, and engraved on his tombstone, the heart of each true son of ' 95, an epitaph in three short words, We loved him. The grass grew over his grave, the wounds in our hearts healed over ; but a mound is left in the little graveyard and a scar where our heart-strings were wounded. The Junior year is over, and now we reach the last step of our evolution. We entered the college world a mass ofunknown substance, surrounded by mouths whose duty it was to tell all history, past, present and future, and to explain away all sciences. By slow development we separated into individuals, and per saltum we reached the state called sophos-moros. 25

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made, but the members had managed to arrange themselves so that each looked (mentally) a different way from all the rest, and not one would consent to change, but insisted on following his own nose if it led him to the dread abode of Tartarus. The presi- dent appealed to us to break this magic spell and turn some pair of men in the same direction. Cicero (always looking his own way) rose first, and with burning eloquence, interspersed with vehement gest- ures, said : Men, gentlemen, Freshmen : This [his way] is the way, the right way, the only way, and every other way leads another way, a wrong way, a different way from this way which leads to all the medals, for which I will give you a chance, etc., etc., ad infinitum, and with a polite bow took his seat. Then Brass arose with a clang and rattle, and, stamp- ing;- his foot with great emphasis, said : In but few words and with great deliberation, sirs, I shall dis- close to you my deliberations as to the possibilities and probabilities of our ever reaching sufficient una- nimity to proceed to any uui — ' Here the reporter asked for time, and the Goat gave a cough which so agitated the house that the effect of Brass ' elocpience was destroyed. Then came forward Solomon, of well- known wisdom, and said: Aw now, eh, just yes, well, you see, we just must, eh, go some way and now I don ' t see any way but mine, ' ' and sat down ' mid thunders of applause. As all seemed to be convinced that we could now go ahead. Deacon rose to make a motion, but was inter- rupted by the entrance of what seemed to be the grandfather of the college. Bowed and stricken he entered leaning on a student who had just returned from a flying trip to Charlotte, and limping heavily because of his gouty pedal extremity, which he had done up in cotton and enclosed in a number eleven carpet slipper. On closer inspection, however, it proved to be none other than Fox, who happened to be late. After this interruption it was moved to adjourn, but as a majority could not be secured it was decided to make a day of it. We were helped out of this dilemma, however, by the fact that there were wafted across the campus the first words of a very familiar ditty: Oh, you Fresh, you had better lie low. For once a motion was unanimously carried by the class of ' 95. We voted by rising. This meeting was the only event of importance dur- ing the year. Commencement came and went as commencements always do, and sixty Freshmen were planted in all the pomp and splendor of a Thursday Night. These seed did not sprout men as quickly as the Dragon ' s Teeth of Cadmus, but when they did forty-six Sophomores was the result. No doubt these new 7 -born creatures would have wrought dire destruc- tion on each other had their violence not been turned into other channels. Since roast pig, chickens and guineas were not so plentiful as they once were, they ate one Freshman every night for supper until the cold weather began. It was suggested then that by treating them and their rooms (the Freshmen ) with a certain sulphurous compound they would keep until spring. But the judgments of man are erroneous. While the appetites of the Sophomores of ' 95 were ruined by long fasting, the Freshmen, on account of their unusual freshness, were entirely spoiled and unfit for anything but to be planted for another crop of Sophomores. As the Sophomore year of the class of ' 95 began to wane, President Wardlaw called a meeting, in which we determined, with all due solem- nitv, that it was our duty to sow the seed for next 24

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The animals of this age had such enormous heads that were it not for the fact that they are perfectly empty they would be incapable of locomotion. After passing through an age of cataclysms, chaos and gen- eral crash, the class of ' 95 came out Juniors. These have much smaller heads, and an instinct to keep them shut, thus hiding the cavity which generally occupies the interior. With another leap, as remark- able as that made by the human animal when he changed from the anthropoid ape to man, we became vSeniors, with all the necessary qualities of that class of animals except conceit, which quality seems to be entirely lacking in the whole class. We now number thirty men, all of whom will no doubt graduate, owing to the fact that the faculty have put doors to all the halls in order to fasten us up after 8 o ' clock. They did this for our own good, for there has been let loose a certain wild Texas desperado in this vicinity, who has taken a vow to extract one lock of hair from the head of every student in college. It is thought Here the historian was interrupted by the death of Clio, who had come to his aid. The poor muse had bitten off more than she could chaw, and when she began to relate the deeds of this terrible man, her frail form failed for fear, and with a gasp she died. It is only just to say that at one time this desperado was a member of the class of ' 95. Since Inspiration is dead the history must stop. Thus endeth the first and last history of the class of ' 95- Historian. 26