Grinnell College - Cyclone Yearbook (Grinnell, IA)

Page 11 text:

To llbrofeesor leonarb jf. llbarker, ffThe youhgesf oldnmah OH The Paculffyj' Whose cheery smile ehd helpful word have beeh ahd 5'fi11 are ah ih5pira'rioh 'co Us all, This Volume is lovihgly Dedicaied by 'che GLASS Ol? ,911-.

Page 13 text:

9 Social Life in the Earlier Iowa College. HE passing hour seems prosaic: a generation .,. QQ. , goes by, that hour has become poetic. But 43, 'gli-i may not the poetry in our thoughts of life often 'll 'i '1 . . . . be the truer history? Life, every life indeed, H Ii is a poem. In every one there is something of TA F 'H J tragedy, something of comedy. In every one l 'I that has a tinge of manliness there is much of sublimity. There are times, too, when the common lite is so seri- ous that even the lighter hours of social intercourse take on its pre- vailing type either largely or wholly. A review of the social life of such a period without a notice of its epoch, would appear rather like a chapter from More's Utopia than from Xenophon's Anabasis. Earliest Iowa College was at Davenport, the earlier college was in Grinnell from 1859 to I8-70. During that time the town was from five to sixteen years old. At the former date it was a hamlet of small- est houses, with an occasional hoard as a sidewalk, and one building serving for the complex uses of church, school house, opera house, court room, and universal reception hall. Few citizens who First met here had reached the prime of life. All were alike rich in muscle, in purpose and in hope, but rich in nothing else that was visible. They came west in sturdy self-reliance, and their environment made a worlcful self-reliance a prime necessity. The Gospel of Rest may be glad news to some people QI-lerbert Spencer thinks it ought to be good news to all Americansj, but the citizens of Grinnell then enjoyed the evangel of work most of all, and often only Napoleonic hours of sleep. They sung the stirring work song one day of the week with voice and with vim, and then went out to Fill up the six remaining days with its happiest illustration.