University of Georgia - Pandora Yearbook (Athens, GA)

Page 19 text:

The Passing of a Crisis. A Study In the Early History of the University. LONESOME and forlorn Freshman walked sheepishly down College Avenue and through the campus gate nearly six years ago. Other boys who looked and felt like they had been here for ages, they were so much at home, lounged on the terrace and the lawn in front of the Library and the Ivy Building; but anxiously as he scanned the crowd, no familiar face appeared. On the slope before the Chapel a group of students were chatting, but no attention was paid the homesick stranger, who nevertheless felt painfully conspicuous. The space was free from students for some distance beyond the Chapel, and the only other groups to be seen were about the old benches under the locust-trees before the Yahoo. By the time he reached the New College, the boy’s heart failed and he eagerly sought some entirely concealed avenue of escape. But as he was about to turn back, his eye was caught by an old weather-beaten, moss-covered corner-stone almost at his feet, and in the interest which the illegible face of this rock aroused all feeling of lonesomeness was lost. An old wooden railing was there at that time upon which he leaned while he tried to decipher the characters on the block. The rusty gutter was pushed away, and some clinging vines he held aside, but the ravages of time prevented any of the letters being read but “By the Liberality of the Legislature of . . . this Edifice was erected. The Corner-Stone of “New Coi.lege.” -li—

Page 18 text:

•r - 0 little gods of clay! smile in your glory; Apollo, Hermes, Bacchus, marble cold, Have not the telling of the tragic story Your cruel lips could to the world unfold. Ye Gods of Clay. Could unfold, yes, if you but knew it truly, The hearts that break beneath your sordid sway, The tears that fall unreckoned and unduly, For you, through you, 0 little gods of clay! But you are silent, cold, uncomprehending, Colder than all the marble gods, for they Were never warmed by love divine, unending, Such as you knew, 0 little gods of clay! -10- —Maude Andrews.

Page 20 text:

Corner Stone was ...” But before our friend was fully satisfied that nothing more could be made of the inscription, he heard steps upon the gravel behind him, and was addressed by a student, evidently an upper-class man. “I believe this is Mr. Phillips, of LaGrange; Jones is my name, Mr. Phillips; allow me to present my friend, Mr. Brown. I believe you are acquainted with Mr. Robert Smith, of your town ; no, we are not personally known to him, but he has written us to take charge of you over here ; oh, no, no, the pleasure is all ours; would you have us introduce you to some of the professors now, or will you stroll down toward our club-rooms ? ” I took a farewell glance at my friend, the corner-stone, and strolled, promising myself to look into ite mystery some day. Several months after that I picked up the information that the stone had been laid thirty or forty years before the war, and that the building had been burned and rebuilt within the original walls. Only a few months ago, while searching for material on the political history of Georgia, I found, in a copy of the Georgia Journal, July 9, 1822, published at Milledgeville when that town was the capital of the State, a communication from Athens telling of the laying of the corner-stone of New College on Juno 24, of that year. “In the center of it,” the letter ran, “were deposited the following articles, viz.: 1. A small family Bible. 2. Several specimens of the current coins of our country. 8. A glass cruet containing a sample of some of the most elegant manufactures of the day. ... On the exterior of the corner-stone is the following inscription engraved in legible characters, viz.: ‘By the Liberality of the —12—