Columbus School for Girls - Topknot Yearbook (Columbus, OH)

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TOP-KNOT, 1928 door. That was just what they feared. A famous Duke was in the city and the public school children were giving him a parade. Down Town street they came, past the school house. Never a child left the room. The two breathed more easily and prepared to deliver their addresses: one was on The American Colonization Policy , and the other on Col- loquialisms in the English Language. The two graduates had worked so hard that it would have been rather a shame if no one had been there to hear! At last the diplomas were given out, and the first commencement of Columbus School for Girls was over. ALICE SEVERSON, '28 ODE TO A CERTAIN TIME OF YEAR I don't know why I feel so blue, There's plenty of work I ought to do, I tumble and toss at night on my bed And get up each morning with aching heady I think sometimes I'm getting the Hug The calendar says- Exams are due! Each teacher wears an important air, A smile or a joke is very rareg They all think we're a terrible lot, Whatever we learned we all forgot 9 When we study again it seems quite new, And here it is time- Exams are duel We hope to pass but we fear we won'tg When we want a date our families don't, But what's the use to worry or cry? We'll do our best 5 and bye and bye We'll find we passed-and not a few Say, It's not so bad when- Exams are due! ELIZABETH MILES, '28 3

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COLUMBUS SCHOOL FOR GIRLS COMMENCEMENT IN 1899 ANY years ago in 1899, there was great excitement in a certain house on East Town Street, for the first class of the Columbus School for Girls was about to be graduated. The two members of the senior class, Bernice Davis, and Eleanor Kurtz, had heard and read so much about sweet girl graduates and the thrills and pleasures of graduation that for months beforehand they thought of nothing but whether they should have a real commencement. At roll call they secretly whispered together and sometimes forgot, for that second in which they were being called to reality from rosy dreams, their quotations from Milton, the Bible, and Shakespeare. Let the little children say Jesus wept. It was up to them, as members of the first class to say, But the Nethinims dwelt in Ophelg and Ziba and Gipsa were over the Nethinims, pronouncing the words ever so correctly. The iirst considerations were the accessoriesg a class pin, school colors, and an annual. The pins were in the form of a three leaf clover. Yellow and white were chosen as the school colors because daisies would be so plentiful at commencement time. The making of an annual would be a harder task. A red-headed girl who wore the most gorgeous hair ribbons in the School was chosen editor-in-chief. A first copy was made, and those who wished a book badly enough made copies for themselves! Probably it would have been without a name had not someone asked the red-haired editor why she was working so hard, and received the reply: To get some more jokes from under this old top-knot. Thence, the name Top-Knot was derived and adopted, and someone made a white cover with Top-Knot written on in gold letters. Commencement week finally came. There were an ivy planting and an ivy oration, a class breakfast, and a dance. To this dance came all those pupils who were old enough to come-eleven in all. At the gradu- ation exercises, Bishop Oldham of the Methodist church spoke. The School was very much amused to see the blushes of their two young head- mistresses when the speaker said that, though they now had their hair up and their dresses down, he remembered them but a short time before when they had their hair down and their dresses up. Just then there came the sound of a band approaching nearer and nearer. The two graduates stirred uneasily. The younger girls cast longing looks at the 2

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COLUMBUS SCHOOL FOR GIRLS LOVE'S YOUNG DREAM Prize Story, 1928 AEL'S eyes closed in a rapturous flood of emotion. Here, indeed, in the soul of this young post-war poet, was all that was beautiful and heartrending. To think that her own sister, whom, it seemed, she had never properly appreciated before, knew him, and that he was coming to see her! Lael wondered how Anne could be so very casual about himg how, when plied with a multitude of eager questions, she could say in that politely indiierent tone,-yes, that she had met him in Paris-yes, he did have occasional spurts of poetry, but nothing much. Lael picked up again the thin, dark green volume of the Collected Poems of James Littleton. And Anne was so cool, so unmoved by this genius! CFor, of course, anyone who had poems printed was a genius.l Perhaps he had written some of these lines to her. The sonnet about all the old loves fading away in the glories of A-'s raven tresses sounded as if it had been written to someone. Lael's heart swelled in anticipation of the day when her sentimental head should be apostrophized in verse. Much to Anne's astonishment, Lael insisted upon driving her to the station to meet the honorable James Littleton. But, as Lael had clearly proved, Anne could have a much pleasanter time if she didn't have the responsibility of the car-on Saturday afternoon especially. The train was met. Lael was duly introduced as my little sister , smiled at, and speedily forgotten. It was evident to her, as she looked on in the carefully adjusted mirror, that Jim was very much absorbed. She heard Anne ask, in her most appealing voice, how he'd like some golf before dinner, and Jim's reply that he didn't shoot much of a game but was awfully keen on it. Lael admitted to herself that golf was a good game, but she couldn't picture a poet, a man with a soul, becoming so earthly. At the ninth hole perspiration would be trickling indiscreetly over his noble browg and at the eighteenth, being a man in spite of his soul. he would doubtless indulge in a little profanity. Beyond these gruesome details, Lael would not let her imagination wander. Unconsciously fearful lest some of the glamor might be lost, she determinedly lost herself in a maze of vague conjectures about the spirit of poetry and practically everything at all related to the mystic cult of verse. 4