Kenyon College - Reveille Yearbook (Gambier, OH)

Page 9 text:

Lord Kenyon and Gordon K. Chalmers riding through r.amhipr 194 ow often do we at Kenyon really imagine what it must have been like here, ' say twenty, fifty, one- hundred and fifty-nine years ago when it all began on the hill? Should we bother? Is our Kenyon heritage more than interesting trivia? Don ' t we better understand ourselves by looki who and what went before us? ' place ourselves in our past on the hiii.--. Half of the student body can only be traced back to 1969 when the first woman was admitted (although coeducation didn ' t begin until 1972). At the time of WWII there hadn ' t been a black at Kenyon since Prince Kwaku Lebiete from the African Gold Coast at- tended in 1865. (He died here and is memorialized by a chapel window). How can the sixty percent of Kenyon men who are independent identify with a school that in 1950 was eighty percent Greek? What would it feel like to be here the winter of 1831 when a revival suspended classes for two days? It was surprisingly homogenous at times. Yet our heritage of a fairly uniform bunch must be acclaimed for a legacy of excellence. What kind of school can boast such graduates as Robert Lowell, Rutherford B. Hayes, Paul Newman, and Olof Palme? A school so small — that only has ten or eleven thousand living alumni — has far reaching ef- forts on the world. Although this (Kenyon) might not be the ideal world, it is unique, and offers great rewards to the person who appreciates it for what it is. A graduate of 1862 reflected upon his past life at Kenyon — as we find ourselves reflecting. Perhaps we did not measure ourselves accurately with the greater world outside of us. There were motives at work in society of which we did not dream. But we were storing up enthusiasm and self-confidence, quali- ties which might not have grown so easily and naturally had the conditions which surrounded us been different. ■iting class, 1950. RosseHall, 1885

Page 8 text:

•P- Kenyan Faces

Page 10 text:

Chri ' - I ' iiiiMi. I ' ll gross 6 Kcnyoii Fact