Boston College - Sub Turri Yearbook (Boston, MA)

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' cat ' ' and Mr. David Cronin, S. J., we were given a steady and sub tantial diet of Ars Poetica and Odyssey; while we partook of trigonometry under Father McGivney, S. J. The desert on the menu was sujapHed by Father Lane, S. J., who carried us to the sublime heights of EngHsh poetry, and then passed from the sublime to the ridiculous (or worse) by compelling us to attempt poetry ourselves. And, strange to say, while most of us succumbed in the first line, three of our members seemed to enjoy the company of the muse, and the effu- sions of McGrail, Taylor, and Sullivan appeared unblushingly in the Stylus. At the trials of the Marquette Debating Society in January the class was honored by having Messrs. Sullivan and Barry chosen to represent that society against Clark College. The subsequent victory of the Marquette in that debate — due in no small measure to our candidates — gave us our first laurels in the debating world. We were likewise distinguished in the annual Oratorical Contest which took place in March. Just to see what it felt like to be in illustrious company, Murray and Sullivan entered the contest against the pick of the college, and to the surprise of all the former was awarded the prize. Upon the fourth of April we retired from these activities and laid aside the work and worries of the classroom to begin the annual retreat. This was conducted by Father Lane, S. J., and will long be remembered as one of the most impressive and beneficial retreats of our college career. At a critical point in our Freshman year it came as a message of hope and encouragement that served and guided us constantly thenceforward. In recognition of his services on the public platform Mr. Barry was chosen president of the Marquette debating society. And as a fitting climax to our already numerous victories in debating Mr. Sullivan was awarded the medal in the prize debate of the Marquette. All in our Freshman year! We had indeed hitched our wagon to a star, and after Mr. Mackenzie had romped home first in the race for the classics medal, Freshman became a proud and notable preface to our collegiate biography. So phomore brought us together again on September IL The roll call was answered by all except three of our former classmates. Our new professors were to be Father Gaynor, S. J., and Father Devlin, S. J., who were to con- tinue the process of training so strenuously begun in Freshman. In the labora- tory we were to be introduced to chemistry under the guidance of Father Cusick, S. J., and the mysteries of mechanics were to be dispelled by Mr. Kiehne, S. J. Soon after the regular course had started we came together and unanimously reelected Mr. Dawson to lead the destinies of the class during our second year. At the start we discovered that our hours of labor were to be longer and '

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Senior Class History HE MIDDLE of September, 1910, marked the beginning of the collegiate Hfe of the Class of 1914. There was no blaring of trumpets, no beating of drums. The event was unheralded ; in the eternal fitness of ,things it was looked upon simply as one of the fits. It was announced only by the laugh and chatter of the new collegians as they assembled in the corri- dors on that sunny September morning. Freshman promised to be a novel experience to us, and we entered it with fresh and vigorous aspirations. Here we were to meet with new duties and responsibilities, and were to be endowed with new privileges. The studies that confronted us, both from their nature and number, gave assurance of an interesting and arduous struggle. And from the start it proved to be both. It took but a few days for everything to get under way, and for a few of the less courageous members to get out of the way, since about six of our number believed that discretion was the better part of valor, and preferred the cold world to the Latin and Greek poets. Early in September the class assembled and chose Mr. Dawson as the pilot of the class, believing that they had in him a man who would not take a serious situation too seriously, and one who would work zealously in behalf of the class. Of the first few months of Freshman we need not speak. They remain as a vivid memory that none of us has forgotten. Under Mr. Ignatius Cox., S. J.,

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that we were to spend much extra time in the laboratory. But the time was destined to pass quickly, for besides chemical actions and reactions we found that many other things could be enjoyed in the laboratory. The commonplace test-tube proved to be a magical wand that could work wonders. Some of our members became so learned in the science of chemistry that they wrote whole pages about experiments that they had never performed, while others produced fireworks of every description. Our second dance at Catholic Union Hall was a very gratifying success in every way. In the literary field we were again represented by McGrail, Sullivan, and Taylor, all of whom had now become regular contributors of the Stylus, and who were considered among the literary lights of the college. At the trials of the Marquette Debating Society held in January, Murray and Sullivan were chosen to represent the society in the intercollegiate debates. At the beginning of the second term the latter was also chosen president of the Marquette, Barry having held the ofiice during the first term. And soon after, both again secured a place on the Oratorical Contest, in which contest Murray was the victor for the second time, thus establishing a college record. On the fifteenth of May we banned all study and gathered at the Hotel Lenox for one of the most enjoyable banquets of our college career. It was this afl air that brought out much of the latent talent of the class, and notably the poetic talent of McDonald. Many had for a long time suspected that Mac was a poet, but when his poem appeared on the menu all doubts were settled and we were sure that he was not. . About the middle of June books were again laid aside and the halfway mark of our college course was successfully passed. Junior year found us all together in one happy family instead of divided into two branches as we had been in Freshman and Sophomore. Many familiar faces were missing, seven members having cast their future lot at Brighton. Father Barrett, S. J., was to be our new guide, but we had become barely acquainted when he was called away and in his place came Father Fortier, S. J., under whose guidance we courageously approached our first philosophical studies. And for the third time we chose Dawson as class president. Philosophy proved vastly difl erent from Latin and Greek authors although our proficiency in the former tongue became a cherished possession with us when we learned from Father Fortier that our textbooks were to be entirely in Latin. Another formidable thing that confronted us was the circles, not mathematical but philosophical, which consisted in passing through a third degree conducted exclusively in Latin and with the unfortunate subjec t seated in an isolated chair and facing an icy examiner.