University of California Berkeley - Blue and Gold Yearbook (Berkeley, CA)

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if not all, of our worthy predecessors had been disloyal to their Alma Mater and disrespectful to the Faculty and students. We feel sure that such an interpretation of the spirit of the BLUE AND GOLD is unwarranted and that, if due allowance be made for the natural exuberance and jocose nature of the college student, no such charge could be sustained. To speak for ourselves, we have never been moved by any motives that were not con sistent with the deepest love for students, Faculty and our Alma Mater, and if we have unwittingly overstepped the bounds of propriety in any direc- tion, we trust our readers will not attribute the error to disloyalty nor to any other wrong motive. K THE last college year came to a close encircled by a halo of solemn splendor. Professor John Le Conte, having finished a long and noble life work, closed his eyes in the deep sleep of peace We have missed the sweet face and tender voice from our midst, yet the ennobling influence of his thought and words and actions remain with us as a rich and inalienable heritage. He being dead yet speaketh. THE year that is just drawing to a close has been a prosperous one in almost every particular. Notwithstanding the inauguration of the Iceland Stanford Junior University, our present Freshman class is the largest that ever entered. We are already beginning to feel the healthy stimulus of competition, which will become keener as our sister University grows. It is hardly too much to say, that the advent of the L,. S. J. U. was the best thing that could have happened for the U. C. We welcome our neighbor to the educational field and trust she will prove a competitor worthy of our steel. In the mean time let us look to our laurels. K THE Regents seem to be awakening to the needs of the University, and have made at least a beginning toward giving us facilities for more 10

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GAIN the silent wheels of time their annual rounds have driven, and ninety-three comes before an expectant public with her BLUK AND GOLD. We have no apologies to offer; we lay no claim to literary immortality. If our readers really want some symposia and apotheoses we should be pleased to contribute some Freshman themes unspeakably profound which were highly commended by Mr. Armes and Dr. Hubbard. But we warn you beforehand; you will not find any in our book. On the other hand, it has not been our purpose to criticise indis- criminately everybody and everything connected with the University, but rather to reflect, as faithfully as we could, the brighter spots of our college life in its various aspects. If we have succeeded in our attempt to realize this aim; if the record that we have here made is such that it will delight us in days to come by the memories it recalls, then we rest content. To you, gentle reader, we leave the judgment. A SHORT time ago we received a note from a member of the Faculty in which he remarked that he trusted that under our direction the BLUE AND GOLD would be perfectly honorable. The inference was that some,

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thorough and comprehensive work. Appropriations have been made for several new buildings, among which is to be one for the department of Electrical Engineering an important though heretofore much neglecled branch of mechanics. Work has already begun on an addition to the gymnasium and ground will be broken for the other buildings very soon. Doubtless the successor of ' 93 3 BLUE AND GDLD will be able to tell of the realization of these plans, and we are sure we echo the sentiment of under- graduates and alumni alike when we say, Let the good work go on. ATHLETICS have never made such an advance as during the past year. On the track, on the field and in the gymnasium there has been phenomenal improvement. While Stanford, with her Eastern talent and better opportunities for team training, barely defeated us at football, it is safe to say that we never put such a team on the field as we did for that game. We respect our opponents for their pluck and ability, and hope the friendly rivalry may grow more intense as time goes on. We congratulate ourselves that we lose no football men with the outgoing class and we have confidence that, with more persistent training, we shall regain the laurels next year. In baseball we divided honors with Stanford. We may expect that new life will be given to this game by the intercollegiate competition. . The most marked improvement has been in track athletics. The University records have been raised to the high standard of the Eastern colleges and are held mainly by men who are in college at the present time. Several .new Coast records have been won by our men, and there seems to be scarcely a doubt that the long-coveted Coast championship will this year be ours. We look forward eagerly to the time of intercollegiate field days, for with such competitors there is sure to be still greater interest in athletics. Ninety-three has succeeded in upholding her prestige on the athletic field, but we are glad to note a decided gain in the number and excellence of athletes in this year ' s Fresh- man class over last year ' s. Much of this gain is without doubt due to the 11