Swarthmore College - Halcyon Yearbook (Swarthmore, PA)

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President Joseph Swain 1 n Germany declared war on France. Con- I U I i gress passed tke Clayton Anti-Trust Bill. Courtney Smith was born m a log cabin in Iowa. And Swartkmore College bad its Golden Anniversary. In 1914. Swartbmore was still a leader m tbe national trend toward liberal education. In the Twentieth Centu ry, college was no longer the sanctuary of ministers and scholars, but the training ground for industrial, business, and po- litical leaders — for the well-rounded man. For millions of Americans whose confidence in their country s destiny was riding high, education was the shining light of opportunity. Colleges, Swartb- more included, attempted to offer a wide variety of courses and extra-curricular activities, serve as a vehicle for social prestige, and add a shot of romance to life. College was to be more and more what the undergraduates made it. Swarthmore was now a full-grown institution, full of ivy, endowment, and assurance. Her early graduates were now men of wealth and station, and fiercely loyal in offering financial support and encouraging athletic teams. The Col- lege had a new independent and self-perpetuat- ing character, nearly freed from the personali- ties and religious traditions that had founded it ; a new interest in the outside world. President Joseph Swain, inaugurated in 1902, personified all these features, vowed to interpret the gen- ius of Quakerism in the twentieth century, and take Swarthmore out of the isolated charm of the cultural backwaters and into the swift mam current of higher education in America. A great master-plan for construction of Col- lege buildings had been commissioned around the turn of the century, and during Swam s ad- ministration most of these went up : the Chem- istry Building, Beardsley, Hicks, the Library, the new Observatory, Whittier House, and the last sections of Wharton before the war; and Clothier, Martin, Bartol, and the Fraternity Houses after the war. On Founders Day of this semi-centennial year, at the invitation of alumni A. Mitchell Palmer and Morris L. Clothier, President Woodrow Wilson was guest of honor and principal speaker. He was encouraged to stay over and see the Founders Day dramatic presentation by the Swarthmore Theatre Club, but wisely declined. It was to be The Idiot , a three-act light comedy written by our Shakespearian scholar. Professor Harold Goddard. After a mediocre 3-3 football showing marking the resumption of play with Haverford (with Tom McCabe at Center), alumnus Dr. Edward Mar- tin gave the team its annual pig roast at the Lamb Tavern. Ruff ' Herndon was honored for his ten years of service in Swarthmore athletics. In 1914, Swarthmore teams m nine sports com- peted against almost every college withm travel- ling distance, including Villanova, Bucknell, Trinity, Hopkins, Pennsylvania, Delaware, North Carolina. Virginia, Michigan, Pitt, Penn State, N.Y.U., C.C.N.Y., Princeton, Rutgers, Wesleyan, 16

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1886 Orchestra any other, the Board in 1886 reluctantly liberal- ized its policies, and appointed a new Matron, Elizabeth Powell Bond, to create a proper atmos- phere of dignity and mutual respect among students, in which exhaustive rules would be unnecessary. In slow stages, singing, tea dances, theatre, and other wholesome activities were introduced. In 1889, Swarthmore girls even en- acted Antigone, by Sophocles, the first Greek play ever presented by young women in Amer- ica. Undergraduates called these years a period of reformation, and hoped it would last. Swarthmore College was coming of age in 1889, with 247 students, 31 faculty members, and with five College buildings (Parrish, Trotter, the Old Observatory, the Meeting House, and the President ' s House) , all heated by steam and lighted by gas. 1889 Tug of War Team

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1914 Sophomore Follies ' Yale, Harvard, Cornell, Army, Navy, and To- ronto. The Lacrosse team had been the defend- ing National Collegiate champion. Swarthmore hosted student representatives (all heavily chaperoned) from 23 women ' s col- leges for a meeting of the Women ' s Intercolle- giate Association for Student Government, in November of that year — the largest gathering of its kind ever held in the country. The men found themselves sipping tea with girls from Goucher, Barnard, Bryn Mawr, Mt. Holyoke, Radcliffe, Vassar, Wellesley, Wisconsin, etc. Dr. John Miller, Professor of Astronomy, was in 1914 elected Vice President of the College. His acceptance speech, remembered for its compassion, was entitled Determination of the Heliocentric Position of a Certain Class of Co- rona Streamers. Famous evangelist Billy Sunday spoke in Col- lection. After giving his religious song and dance in ungrammatical but colorful English, he led the student-body in singing first the Swarthmore AJma Mater, and then his favorite, Lead Kindly Light. Other Collections featured music, lec- tures, and occasionally moving pictures cast on a bedsheet at the front of the hall. Ruff Herndon in 1914 Women ' s Athletics Men ' s Athletics 17