Indiana University - Arbutus Yearbook (Bloomington, IN)

Page 18 text:

PRESIDENT WELLS and cominciiccnicnt speaker James Adams, look over a few notes. DECEMBER CRADS Never has a class more truly earned the right to receive degrees. And the 580 Seniors and postgraduates of the first mid-year graduating class in the history of In- diana University knew better than anyone else what that parting pat on the back from Dr. H. B Wells, their president, meant. F ' or Sunday afternoon from 2 :30 to 3 :58 o ' clock they sat under the mellow lights of the Auditorium and heard the final ceremonies for the December Class of 1942. a class born and graduated in the travail of a world at war. Only a few faltering steps removed from actual participation in some phase of that war ; they had felt for three years and three months the ominous pressure of war. War was a novel break from the routine of get- ting ready for that transition from high school to college when it first appeared in the headlines in that September week end of 1939. For a time it was an interesting and fa.scinating drama on the pages of their newspapers. 14

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and committees usually inactive. Nevertheless, dances were still successful, the Daily Student con- tinued to print the news, and the ARBUTUS struggled to completion. No, college, like the proverbial old gray mare, ain ' t what it used to be ; more classes, less play ; longer hours, fewer cokes. But, being that I.U. is well over a hundred years old and has gone through several other wars already, we sincerely doubt that our petty trials will spell the death knell of coUich. BRIDGE WILL REMAIN a favorite pastime long as there are four people left on campus. THE VICTORY THEME won the last homecom- ing decorations contest for the Tri Delts. MEN MAY COME and men may go. Dame ' s Ball lives on forever. but the THE ARBUTUS, having run for fifty years, won ' t let a little thing like a war hinder publication. 13

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Then war began to break with increasing irri- tation into the isolation of their college lives. The first draft bill . . . the first registration, but most college men deferred or under the age limit . . . the draft age lowered to 20 . . . then to 18 ... the speed-up program with compulsory physical educa- tion . . . the Enlisted Reserve Corps . . . the Army- Navy-Marine college plan. And on this Sunday afternoon, Dec. 20, 1942, they donned caps and gowns, trudged through glist- ening white snow to take part in a ceremony as old as the institution that has become their alma mater. In the Fieldhouse they jostled and laughed and the Laws and the Meds sang while all waited pa- tiently. Through the snow again in formal proces- sion to the Auditorium, some talking, some laugh- ing, some silent, some unimpressed and some self-conscious . . . An hour and 28 minutes later, degrees in hand, a challenge for their future ringing in mind, they marched back again to the Fieldhouse. Commence- ment was over. The December Class of 1942 had passed into a world at war. TRUSTEE JOHN HASTINGS delivers well-pointed re- marks at the Senior farewell banquet. KPS?; ; ' ' ' , . i ; i . fu 4 %, ' :r %