Fort Hays State University - Reveille Yearbook (Hays, KS)

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MECHANIC ARTS I Two and a half centuries ago a red cedar tree began its existence high up on the bluff of the Sa- line River within twenty miles of Hays. Two ceil- turies later this tree was cut by an early settler and used to support the ridgepole of one of the farm buildings. Last year this log was dug out of the ground and sold to a Fort Hays Normal student who brought it into the Department, sawed it into boards from which he made a cedar chest that ought to last a few generations. Such, briefly, is the his- tory of one of the trees from which furniture has been made in the Cabinet Making classes. It is impossible to know the history of every tree or parts of trees we have used but we do know that discarded walnut kitchen tables have been rescued from basements and out of the way places and made into library tables. It is not often that a piece of furniture which has been discarded from the kitchen finds its way into the living room or is made into a chest or writing desk, or that a n old walnut bedstead is made into a phonograph cabinet. Such has been a part of the boys’ work during the last year. When school opened last September, there were not more than eight boys taking work who had previously been enrolled in the Department. A few had had some work in High School, but the majority were beginners. The quality of the work has been better than at any other time during the last four years even though we have been without a finishing room. We have completely outgrown our present quarters. This fact has im- pressed itself upon students and visitors when they have seen finished and unfinished articles in every corner of the room, in the hall, and in offices of other faculty members. Very little of the student ' s time is taken in doing work for the school ■unless he is paid for his work. During the last four years, two cabins, a dairy barn, a creamery and a two-story house have been built almost en- tirely by boys from this Department. Edwin Davis B.S. Professor Mechanics Arts I Page Thirty-Three

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FINE ARTS There are a few things connected with artists ; an attic room, live cents a day for food, a bevy of half-squeezed paint tubes, and a balmy odor that is a cross between turpentine and a chemistry lab. We have the attic room all right — the very toppest room in the coliseum — “third floor back.” Many students who have a few extra pounds avoir- dupois are taking art, not aesthetically, but for its reducing qualities. For. best results you should have the preceding class in the industrial building and with great speed mount to the art room and fall exhausted in the door. Fainting ones have thus Georgja Wooton provoked some of the most artistic sketches from Pvofessov Public School Art others in the class — some of those fagged creations so popular in recent marbles. As for the half-starved, one sandwich-a-day stuff, we have it. After a student buys a few illusive (illusive means much) art supplies his wallet is carried merely from habit. We must be up to the minute, so we have taken seriously to Batiking, bas-relief, evolved coffee cans, and the like. We ad- mit even tho the Ladies ' Home Journal does say you can make Christmas gifts for nothing, that we have figures proving otherwise. If you want hand designed gifts for arts sake, — very well, — otherwise get them from any good mail order house. However, with all our Bohemian ways, we are doing things. Our “Bet- ter Speech” posters were a sensation — lack of space makes press notices im- possible. Our “Come To Chorus” dodgers raised the attendance at least five hundred and we also refer you to the notable art work here in The Reveille. The work in “Applied Design ” has enabled fond couples to no longer delay marriage. A man need not worry over the cost of house furnishing if his wife has been an art student. She can make furniture from cigar boxes, enameled gray and with some of those darling cubist flowers scattered here and there. Gunny sacks evolve into cushions for the choice lounge and in some instances where there is a scarcity of house space, more useless furni- ture has been painted directly on the walls with such acute perspective that the couple were never suspected of economizing. Page Thiity-Twc

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CHEMISTRY AND BACTERIOLOGY Step into this Department some morning when a laboratory class is at work. When you have ob- served the interest with which the students pursue their work and the pleasant relations existing be- tween Mr. Rankin and his class, you will be con- vinced that the - work is not dry though a technical study. The Chemistry Department has charge of the fertilizer experiments that are carried on at the Normal Gardens. It also makes analyses for the public. Bacteriology is a recent addition to the curric- ulum. It has proved to be very interesting. Special attention is g iven to Household Bacteriology, im- portance of Bacteriology in agriculture, and the re- lationship between health and micro-organisms. The inoculations, given in February, against pneumonia following influenza were under the charge of this Department. An example of the work of the class is the investigation in the spring of the actions and effect upon plant life of the bacillus radich cola, an organism that lives on the roots of alfalfa, beans, and kindred plants. The extension work seems to be fully as popular as the class room work in spite of the- fact that no laboratory work is possible. This Department is making a steady growth along with the other work of the school. During the past year considerable apparatus has been pur- chased, including a varied assortment of glassware, heating appliances and sterilizers. Among the larger pieces is an Arnold Steam Sterilizer, a hot air sterilizer and an electric low temperature incubator. Roy Rankin A.B., A.M. Professor Chemistry and Bacteriology Page Thirty-Four