City College of New York - Microcosm Yearbook (New York, NY)

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But with the change to our more spacious buildings mid unincreasing diversity of students’ interests, the student body lu-came disintegrated in larger measure. That intimacy which the small community at Twenty-third Street cherished was weakened in the greater community on the heights. The students did not meet one another except in passing. The faculty and trustees deeided to revive the old tradition of cha| el meetings to develop a feeling of friendship and solidarity among the students and a grainier college spirit. Chapel meetings arc now an institution at C. C. X. Y. Every Tuesday at 11 A. M. the entire College assembles in the Great Ilall. Attendance is obligatory on the part of the students. Each class lias its block of scats, the Seniors occupying those chairs nearest the platform, the Juniors behind them, and so on hack. Members of the Faculty occupy the scats on the platform and partake of the exercises with the students. The President of the College usually presides. Exercises consist of the reading of a Psalm, important announcements on College matters, an address by a student or an outside visitor, and singing of College songs by the entire assembly under the supervision of Prof. Samuel Baldwin. .Mirtings close at 11:23 A. M. The assembly rises while the Faculty procession passes, followed by that of the cSnior Clnss. The other classes tile out after them. The first of the chapel meetings was held on Thursday February If). President Mcxcs opened the assembly with the significant remark. This is the first time I have ever seen the entire student liody assembled together.” % At the second meeting on February 21, Mr. Lee Kohns, '81. one of the trustees of the College and Presi- dent of the Associate Alumni, addressed the meeting. He reminisced of the assemblies down-town, and ho]H'd for a Iwtter College liecnuse of our cha|M l meetings. On April 13, Mr. Burchard. Secretary of the Associate Alumni, addressed the assembly and with much feeling s|N»ke for a fine College spirit, touehing on the days of vorc at Lexington Avenue. NINET! MAC Page Ticcnly-Six

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The Chapel [ ■'vl I’It o] lcr nluinni can look hack to sonic of the most pleasant moments of their lives in the assemblies in the old chapel at the College building on Twenty-third Street and Lexington Avenue. Attendance was a privilege allowed to Seniors and .Juniors, and some Sophomores only. The Faculty took their seats arranged in an arc from the right to the left corner of the stage. After each oration one might observe the professors mak- ing marks in their little note hooks. The Professor of English and the Professor of Hellos Letters marked for Coni|N sition and the Professor of Elocution marked for shaking. The Ward medals in Composition and Ora- tory were awarded in Chapel for Senior Orations, on the bases of marks given in the assembly. The best description of the assemblies was written by II. (L S. Noble, '80. in tin- Class Day book. “Star of 80. “When the reading of the Bible begins, and the terrible moment approaches lie is seized with a violent pain —well, in tin- region immediately below his thoracic cavity, and he suddenly forgets the first two lines of his piece . . . And then his name is called, llis head swims as in a dream, lie suddenly finds himself upon the platform and before him extends a sea of upturned faces with beadv eves, and In-luiid the Faculty are distributed in a half-moon armed with little books in which to express their various opinions. . . . At length he has said his say, and hurries from the platform hack among his section where he is told that he “did well,” in a tone of voice im- plying that it was not so awfully bad as it might have been; and the business of the day goes on as if his grand efforts of oratorical effect had never taken place at all.” And in the publication of the Alumni The College of the City of New York. Memories of Sixty Years”: ”... Frobisher, author of 'Voice and Action,’ bid you ‘speak Large and Wide!—speak to that window up thereat the other end of the chapel.’ When you spoke your piece on the stage and heard your own voice somewhere in the remote distance sounding like a tinv dog in distress under a barrel, he sat in grim solitude at the right of the stage where your wobbling knees showed most—in profile, because they wouldn't stay back,— and put down marks agin’ you. It was a blood curdling experience. When the College moved uptown the regular compulsory assemblies were discontinued. NINE! Mine WaVENTY «BOSM Page Turniy-Fivc

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