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

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of class spirit for the broader college spirit, mention of which has already been made. These minstrel shows have combined the purely vaudeville and chorus features of the old black-face show with the higher qualities of a dramatic entertainment. The circus drew into itself not only all the class talent, but the best that could be furnished by the rest of the college and even by the courtesy of professional performers. They were both innovations and were worthy of encouragement. The enormous labor involved and the uncertainty of the venture from a financial point of view have made a number of classes chary about perpetuating the custom. One of the most interesting and valuable interclass activities, that in recent years has suffered a noticeable decline, is the freshman-sophomore field day. It cannot be said that interest in track athletics is dying out, although it may be reasonably ques- tioned whether enthusiasm for this form of sport has grown with the same pace as the popularity of other games. It is undoubtedly true that the main cause of the lack of interest in an interclass field day is the dying of class spirit a factor in these contests which made every race and every contest on the cinder path a matter of the deepest concern and keenest rivalry. The loss of class spirit is responsible in a great measure for the abandonment of interclass baseball and football games contests which always attracted a large crowd and a tense one. With the disappearance of these athletic contests, also disappeared a whole host of scrub games, which formerly added much to the life of the college. These were matches between the different engineering colleges, between the college newspa- per staffs and between the fraternities. True We have an occasional faculty Skull and Keys baseball match on a holiday and once in a while the glee club and football team cross bats in a costume game, where more consideration is given to a laughable situa- tion than to a double play. In passing, it may be well to remind the present generation that the greatest changes have come into track athletics, the number of events being eliminated and thus restricting the field of competition to a few performers. Field days a few years ago had such strange events as three-legged races, record runs to Grizzly Peak and back again, the high kick, the pole vault for distance, the standing high and broad jumps, throwing the fifty-six pound weight, the baseball throw, walking matches, tug-of-war matches and bicycle races. With such a wide field to choose from it was very easy for all able-bodied students to participate in some form of track contest. Junior and Senior Dignity Junior Day, the one great traditional day celebration of the third-year class, is a nctive case of a class holiday which has come to be a university affair with no trace of class rivalry in it other than the friendly emulation which characterizes most college activities. Junior Day formerly was a rather tame affair, built on the plan of a high school ' s graduating exercises. Music, speeches and essays were the great features. Then a dramatic element was introduced in the form of a rollicking burlesque. Later this theatrical portion of the program became the most important and overshadowed the literary features. Today the Junior Day program consists of a farce of three acts preceded by a curtain raiser and the class president ' s speech. Some of the student plays presented in recent years have been exceptional pieces of work. One of these scored a tremendous hit when given on Junior Day to a large undergraduate audience. Since then it has received a favorable reception on the professional stage. The Junior ' prom is the grand class dance which winds up Junior Day festivities. Often the -spending juniors make this the most elaborate college dance of the year. Commencement Week has always been the great senior celebration, but only in recent years has it had a complete program of festivities. The earlier Class Days and Com- mencement Days were simple affairs, the one persistent feature in all these affairs being the everlasting essay and oration. Even Class Day had a highly serious motive : for the morning exercises were ponderous affairs with senior addresses on problems that were oppressive. The afternoon exercises were held under the oaks, and consisted of the famous trio of class history, prophecy and dispensation. The latter on many occasions caused weeping and wailing, for the dispensator read the class will and publicly pre- sented his class-mates with gifts that were anything but conventional flattery. On this basis the future elaborate afternoon exercises have been built. Ten years or more ago the Class Days commenced to grow in importance. Ivy and tree plantings took place in the oak grove and a band concert started the day. In the afternoon the class pilgrimage was made, and all the buildings and places of interest were revisited by the class in a body, appropriate speeches being made by representa- tive speakers at each important spot. The day closed with a picturesque promenade con- cert in Lovers ' Lane which in those days had a romantic seclusion it certainly lacks 27 Senior Extravaganza ue end

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lue and Inter-Class Courtesies Throughout the year the hostility of the two lower classes flared out in countless ways. It did not need to be a stated conflict. It could be a simple passing on the path. It was a continuous feud, ready to break out in violence at the least provocation. A class meeting, for instance, was always the signal for a disturbance, and the opposing class would see to it that the gathering was broken up if doors had to be wrenched from their hinges, windows smashed, and even the fire hose brought into play. A freshman indulging in a forbidden privilege always made himself a storm center. Once a freshman took a cane and a co-ed to church on a Sunday evening. The sight of the sophomore emblem (the cane, of course) in the hands of the freshman caused a riot that disturbed the quiet of the Sabbath evening and scandalized the community as well as the luckless freshman ' s fair escort. The numerals of a rival class always acted as a red rag. The baseball backstop, private fences and even Goat Island have borne class numbers and have received the brunt of interclass collisions in consequence. Slue and Gold, j Out of class rivalry and the union of common interests grew a few traditional celebrations. These have been tolerated and encouraged or doggedly opposed according as the fires of class rivalry burned fresh or burned low. The freshmen and sophomores, under these conditions, did not concern themselves much with carrying out any elaborate class festivities. The most they hoped to do was to get through their dances, the freshie glee and the sophomore hop, without having the electric light wires cut and the gymnasium left in Stygian darkness and rank confusion, or having the merry-makers further disturbed by such annoyances as flour throwing or the presence of rats and, possibly, limburger cheese. Many a lower class dance has been concluded at a late hour under the glancing beams of a few locomotive headlights and a few tallow candles, all because class spirit took it as a matter of course that nothing creditable should be allowed to emanate from the rival body. In later years the sophomore class has taken upon itself the duty of getting up a minstrel show or a circus, in which all the vaudeville talent of the class and college could have an opportunity to present itself. Largely because these celebrations took on a larger aspect than mere class enterprises, they always have been immune from attack. In one sense, such a change of spirit is worthy of note, since it marks that break down 26 Commencement-.

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today. These were the days of small classes and small audiences. There came a day when expansion called for new ideas, and it remained with the class of ' 94 to set a new standard for Class Day exercises, which lias been followed with minor modifications and elaborations ever since. The discovery of Ben Weed ' s Amphitheater, the natural hollow in the eucalyptus grove behind the college buildings, offered a natural auditorium for a more elaborate spectacle than had hitherto been given. The clever play-wrights of ' 94 contrived an extended drama based on the old German Vehmgericht, the secret courts that flourished in the Middle Ages. The play was given with tremendous success in the circular theater that had been found in the hillside. Underneath lofty eucalypti and shady cedars, the graduating seniors carried out in solemn burlesque the ceremonials of the gloomy old Teutonic tribunal. Around on the hillside stood or sat their friends, the spacious pit affording ample room for the accommodation of the crowd that at- tended the exercises. Little did those pioneers expect that a brief ten years would see the natural hillside give place to stately stone and the classic beauty of a Greek Theater capable of accommodating ten thousand. It has been a rapid growth from the first spectacle in the amphitheater. Since that time there have been Greek, Chinese. Aztec, Turkish and Old English settings for the old drama of the pursuit of the diploma. The increase in the size of the class and its audience has brought in many innovations. Stages have been erected, scenery painted, orchestras hired and dramatic coaches engaged until the modern class day is really an imposing affair. Now that the Greek Theater is completed, future classes will have abundant opportunity to show what ingenuity and originality can do under ideal circumstances to make this, one of Berkeley ' s most persistent traditions, flourish as vigorously as in the past. Class Day today is a combination of all the past customs. The band concert in the morning takes place under the oaks, and the senior oak is the scene of the transfer of the senior plug from the president of the graduating class to the junior president, just on the verge of seniorhood. Under these oaks, just before the start of the pilgrimage, the different classes hold impromptu graduating exercises of their own. The sophomore for the first time dons the gray glory of a junior plug. The freshman eagerly takes his first distinctive badge, the sophomore cap. (It used to be the cane, but times and manners have changed.) The upper classes, strange to say, go in for all the horse-play, and senior and junior plugs are unmercifully caved in and kicked about by rollicking class-mates. The sophomore, in his new-found dignity, is strangely quiet and reserved. There being no freshman class to molest, he has no function on class day, and remains modestly in the background. Mortar boards and gowns used to appear on these class days at irregular intervals, but the custom has never persisted, and it is now wisely relegated to the more dignified academic procession of Com- mencement Day. Commencement Week also sees the grand senior ball, the senior banquet, the library reception, the alumni reception at Hopkins Institute of Art, the baccalaureate sermon and. in the old days, Mrs. Phcebe Hearst ' s garden party at her beautiful country home, the Hacienda del Pozo de Verona, near Pleasanton. The class, usually, even if it has never had much coherence in its previous four years ' existence, gets together in a won- derful manner on these last days. It has always been so. The thought of a farewell, meaning the hopeless disruption of ties that have become dear, is something that knits hearts at parting and makes the common bond much dearer than any one supposed it ever could be. Of this only the graduating senior knows. It is something the under- graduate must learn by experience at his appointed time. The Senior Search for Prestige Senior customs, which in other colleges are of first rank, have been slow to take root at Berkeley. The class of ' 98 tried to transplant a Yale idea in a senior fence. Western ingenuity gave to the fence a broad top easy to sit upon. Patriotism made the form of the structure a C. It was intended primarily for senior loafing and deliber- ation to say nothing of cutting initials. At first, after its dedication, the Senior C was popular, but it proved to be sunny and out of the beaten path. One day a janitor and a yellow dog was seen sitting calmly on the fence, and the tradition went to pieces. A Stanford raid removed the eyesore from the campus and no sighs of regret have followed it to Palo Alto. Senior singing on North Hall steps has been tried on many different occasions. It has been tried also under the oaks. Eventually, with the growth of the Senior Control tradition, a purpose in these senior gatherings has made itself felt, and the meetings promise to be one of the most potent factors in the future undergraduate life at California. 28 Junior Farce