Agnes Scott College - Silhouette Yearbook (Decatur, GA)

Page 18 text:

' H lp r l? ' 1 m v - m Ml

Page 17 text:

:%:■ mom: Agnes Scott ' s myriad annual celebra- tions have come and gone through the years. Among those most likely to be unfamiliar to present students are: May Day — Sponsored by the P.E. department, a gala production of song and dance was presented annually in the May Day dell (now known as the amphitheatre) from 1914 until as recent- ly as 1960. In attendance were the sen- ior May Queen and her court of class representatives. Suppressed Desires Day — Scream- ing in the library, addressing professors by their first names, ringing fire bells in the dorms, riding the faculty elevator in Buttrick and keeping lights on all night were just a few of the privileges $1.00 could buy as part of this Junior Jaunt project. In a surprising turn-about, one professor used her pass to give a pop- test, then promptly tore the papers up before the class ' s eyes. Little Girls ' Day — On the Friday before Investiture, seniors traditionally dressed themselves as young -hildren and terrorized the campus with water- — pistols. These antics, along with a chapel the seniors gave, symbolized their last fling of youth before assuming their newly exalted positions. Little Girls ' Day was last celebrated in 1962. February 22 — The anniversary of Col. Scott ' s birthday is still honored as Founder ' s Day, but on that day for many years no classes were held. Lor g Commencement Weekend — The traditional graduation festivities be- gan on Saturday afternoon with the Class Day exercises in the May Day dell. Sophomores in their white dresses accompanied seniors and carried a huge chain of daisies and ivy. The chain typi- cally stretched the length of Inman ' s porch and was woven for their sister class by the sophomores. After the Class Day program of such announce- ments as the seniors ' last will and testa- ment and the class prophecy, the daisy chain was taken to the quad and laid in an S ; it remained there the rest of the day. Saturday night brought Book Burning and Junior Capping. This time, juniors in white met with the seniors in front of Main. Each robed senior stepped for- ward in turn with her most detested sub- ject book or notebook and dropped it into the bonfire with a short poem as epitaph. The group then went directly to the quadrangle, where the juniors were capped. On Sunday morning. Baccalaureate was held, followed by the president ' s party that afternoon. The entire celebra- tion climaxed with graduation on Mon- day morning. Weekly Formal Dinner was held ev- ery Sunday at noon and on Wednesday nights for years at Scott. By the ' SO ' s, students were simply required to wear Sunday clothes but originally for- mal meant long dresses and gloves. At such meals instruction in social eti- quette was given. The only time the sophomores failed to correctly quess the freshman mascot during Black Cat was in 1973. Black Cat as we know it evolved through a series of stages. Originally the bonfire was held as a pep rally for the first hockey game of the year. Fresh- men choose mascots and secretely hung door decorations with their sym- bol outside upperclassmen ' s rooms. Eventually sophomores g ot the notion of surprising freshmen with a sign pro- claiming the secret which they post- ed the night of door-decorating. At last one ambitious group of sophomores de- cided to announce the freshmen mascot in a song at the bonfire — hence our present practice. Special thanks go to Dr. Edward McfHair and Mollie Merrick for their kind help, and to Ma Burdette for her patient research.

Page 19 text:

fcb (more traditions) BLACK CAT ll eep an eye cut for Black Cat again arrived with its promise of temporary insanity and momentary respite from fall ' s hectic schedule. This year, hazing was not begun until a week before the bonfire in order to alleviate unwelcome dis- turbances to studying. The Freshmen, led by chairman Anne Luke, however, began to debate on and to select a mascot at the usual time, while the Sophomores, under the adept leader- ship of Beth Maisano and Susan Glover, poked and prodded through scads of green suggestions and decoys. As the bonfire drew near, excitement was hard to contain, and thus in hazing week at least one dorm was subjected to a waterfight and another was strewn with shaving creme. To what degree these scuffles contributed to discovering the mascot one cannot say, but their good-natured mutual hazing was in the spirit of the times. c - n.