Kalamazoo College - Boiling Pot Yearbook (Kalamazoo, MI)

Page 32 text:

burned upon the desks some Grecian characters, hurried down the corridor and escaped from a window in the Eurodelphian Hall. This was the phenomenon from beginning to end. Had we not attached much import- ance to it, less would have been said of the matter, but since that night we have known what it is to be a star class. The prehistoric period of our history, by which is meant the period immediately preceding our introduc- tion to Kalamazoo College as an incorporated body, was an intensely exciting time. Two young ladies lived in the same town. One sultry afternoon, on the way home from an exciting game of tennis, the conversation drifted to the subject of college for the coming year. It rested between Kalamazoo College and Harvard Annex. All at once the wind began to blow in Htful gusts. Dark clouds came up. Gleam upon gleam of lightning flashed in the sky. Still they sat motionless upon the curb-stone. The elements grew angrier. The struggle was long and terrible. Yet not a trace of fright appeared upon the face of either girl. Miss LaTourette, who was skilled in astrology and witchcraft, was asked to tell the omens. A cricket being caught, she sprinkled Quaker oats upon its antennae and then killed it, col lecting the blood upon her tennis racket. Upon the altar were placed the thigh bones with double rows of fat around them, and the smell of burning cricket flesh .arose to heaven. Then the wind shifted directly from west to east, which was interpreted to mean that they were to go westward. So it was decided. When we twenty-two freshmen began. our course, We agreed upon one thing, namely, concord. lrefer, not to the lazy, insipid sort of agreement where some have no opinions to express and some no desire to express them, but to a deference to each other's wishes, asort of working harmony. This was broken only once, I am sure, during the three years of which I write. To this concord we attribute much of that which college students call good times. Had we not every reason for being the happiest class beneath the chapel roof? There were triumphs in the realm of mathe- matics, unearthings of the bones of dead languages, and draughts from the springs of philosophy. 'We also looked to the development of our social natures, first at class meetings, then in the halls, on the stairs, all the way from one recitation room to another, and then in the drawing room, and we congratulated ourselves that we could entertain the class of '97 very charmingly. In the spring of '94, while we were yet a little green upon the outer edges, we crowned the year with a classic wreath in the shape of a Latin party given to all the college students and faculty at the Ladies' Hall, Now that it is all over we will confess that we feared, at times, lest the program would be wearisome. In other words, we felt that it might be casting pearls before swine to offer Latin food. But, happily, we were disappointed. For Mr. Finlay was heard saying only a day or so ago: G, temporal O, mores! Professor haec intelligit, Junior vidit. Hic tamen vivitf' Pink carnations kept blossoming at our feet, even when we passed into Sophomoric life. They fairly covered the campus in the spring, when ball games began and ball players were rife. Our star still shone. There was only one time when we feared that it had left us. It shone with double brilliancy when we gave our rehearsals of orations, in preparation for the chapel stage, it threw light on lVlr. MacDougall's path- way as he took flying trips to H-g it lighted Anna VVarwick's study table after her taper had burned dim. But when eight youths sought a way for providing nine young ladies with an escort apiece, it stayed behind a cloud. Those were troublous times! Besides discrep- ancies in quantity, there were some in quality. Surrep- titious measurements of heights and breadths used to be taken so that the incongruous might not appear.

Page 31 text:

X X X 1 ? N 2 VS Q X T, N, 5 1 ' ta.. ill X l f :cf e l fr if G t il ' T I may - 3 Q! .Elf l ll ' l lllb 'fy f Q f s f! E . -it ,KX gf J illt llllllllcillll f cs Q.. HISTORY OF THE JUNIOR CLASS. ET the incredulous say what they will against the idea of a lucky star. Let them remove every trace of horoscopic belief from their own theo- logy. VVe, the class of '97, stand firm in our rock- bound conclusion that no class can hope to succeed Without the guidance of this star, and We have reasons for such a conclusion. Though till to-day we held it as one of the class secrets, yet for the sake of unlcnowing classes to come, we do not hesitate now to say something of our pre- monitions and 'rhe results. ln the month of Septem- ber, 1893, two days after college opened, each member of '97 hada vision. lt worked powerfully upon the anatomy of each beholder. Haggard looks showed plainly an anxiety of mind. Vvle resolved to share each other's woe. At dead of night, among the sacred trees on the border of Mirror Lake, we assembled in fright. XVhen lo! in yon sky, directly above the lower college building, appeared a star of enormous size, having twenty-two points-corresponding exactly to our number. Dazzled at first, we dared, little by little, to gaze again-when, in a flash, appeared Pro- positi Tenaxf' With a low, whizzing sound the Hery thing circled toward us and we caught sight of the initials P. W. S. T. H. upon one of the points. Then it was gone. Again it appeared, but we saw only a mixture of letters in which were H. L. F. S. W. A. Nothing was plain. It entered the lower college building, lighted up the room in the southwest corner, flitted to the southeast corner on the second Floor,

Page 33 text:

The historian is hardly in a position to state all the misery that those youths endured for a social evening But they were brave lads! VVe still maintain that Philolexian Hall is the best possible place for How of reason and of soul. Like Stanley, we had to make our way out, but we are satisfied, since we gave that famous yell beneath the eaves of the dormitory. fBy the way, the class of '97 hopes to issue a separate pamphlet, containing translations of our yell into sixty-three foreign tongues, with foot-notes 'to the original textj So the second year of College life passed for these wise fools. The Seniors say they doubt if a single week went by Without a conquest of some 'kind. Either our champion tennis player won new laurels for himself, or our botanical-geological member discovered some new anemone-schist, or our literary members con- tributed something to the college world. It is not impossible for the undeveloped mind of a Sophomore to catch inspiration from an inspiring instructor. We have gone into classes dull and careless, but we have gone out with higher ideals of life. As a class we were closely confined to our books. Of course, some were more so tha11 others. On one occasion, Mr. Finlay rose to translate-something was the matter, evidently, for he faltered and turned pale. Then in haste he took from his kind-hearted chum the only book that he could read from-his own copy of Tacitus. But I might recall, without ceasing, '97 jokes written on the margins and fly-leaves of old books, which we have almost forgotten about, for we laid them away when we put off childish things and became juniors. At first we did not want to be children of a larger growth, but we knew that until we reached that point, the discovery must be a secret. What discovery? Why, the X ray, to be sure. VVe knew all along, that with the first burst of the junior butterfly from his chrysalis, some wonderful demonstration would appear. The X ray was only an off-shoot from our star. Prof. jenks called it transformation of energy. What could measure the difference between these two years better than X mise? No one could compute the value of that Xf Professor Williams gave up the problem after the fifth week, but he said it was a mighty stride upward. In the south-west corner, just off the chapel, is a reading-room. This we dedicated by our first election of officers for the year of '96. No party strife -but-a party at Yule-tide. Pink carnations were in bloom for us again. Again we shouted, On a way! You ask what we are working toward? To find out what we do not know, and then to find out why we do not know what we do not know. We shall do this by means of the ray. We shall first try to discover VVhy is a mouse when it spins? By this same ray we hope to discover our individual class standings at examina- tion time, merely from reflections from the professor's brain. In fact, there is no limit to our plans for the rayis uti ity. We hope that we are better juniors than we were Sophomores. ' But the putting on of junior dignity, and the assuming of a place among the powers of the earth, has made us look farther, so that we understand better what a college education means. Whether, therefore, we take the stardthe ray-to be symbolical of a stride toward brilliancy, or as an actual guide for our future, we know that, in the main, rest with ourselves. Pray do not judge by this brief and unsatisfactory account years' existence. If we have sometimes failures, we are sadder and wiser now succeeded, we have a right to remember success must us altogether of our three made dismal If we have it. We hope we are not too egotistical-but it is our candid opinion that we are not far from perfection! If history is of service in the world in pointing out past blunders, let coming classes profit hereby. But do you not see that we are weeping for these three glorious years that we'have just buried? Turn not thy piercing ray too heartlessly upon the Class of '97!