Lehigh University - Epitome Yearbook (Bethlehem, PA)

Page 14 text:

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Page 13 text:

DEAN PHILIP MASON PALMER When Lehigh men turn to thoughts of what makes standards in education, and to what makes educated men with standards, they turn instinctively to teachers who have inspired and taught them not only from the pages of books but from the pages of life. No other at Lehigh but Dean Philip Mason Palmer can answer so well to the title of master-teacher of knowledge and of life. When the University Board of Trustees needed a kev man to help fill the gap of the no-president era, they turned to Dean Palmer and appointed him chairman; but the greatest tribute that can be paid to Professor Palmer is that his students throughout the years have returned to Lehigh seeking renewal of the fellowship which began in the common bond of study in a class room.

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HISTORY There had been an infantile paralysis epidemic that summer, and on Septem- ber 9, 1941, fifty-nine of Lehigh ' s infant class of 1945 were quarantined in their home towns all over Pennsylvania and New Jersey, his was how we started: with one in every ten of us missing. We will finish with far less than one in ten of us here. Some, in fact a great many of us, have already graduated; another great group has been called to the service of our country; a few have gone and come back. And, as a result of the hostilities and Lehigh ' s accelerated program, the freshman classes that entered in June and October, 1942 and February, 1943 have become the Senior Class of 1945. So, it seems, this book is being presented by a group that calls itself The Class of 1945, but its only claim to the name is that it will graduate in the year 1945. The original Class of 1945 was welcomed, three months before the outbreak of war, by an editorial in the Brown and White which stated that we were en- tering Lehigh at a crucial time. As we look at it now, crucial was a greatly understated word. Today, we would pick, disastrous. That first editorial went on to say that we, as college students, were the generation that would solve the intellectual and scientific problems of the world. That editorialist didn ' t see far enough into the future and his eyesight was probably below Army and Navy standards. For if he could see the Freshman class he welcomed in 1941, as that class is today, he would see us solving the problems of the world, but not those problems of a scientific or of an intellectual nature. We weren ' t here long enough as the Class of 1945 to put forth many great leaders, but as freshmen we chose Chuck Austin Chairman of the traditional Frosh Banquet Committee with Paul Franz, Bob Moore, Harry Brindle, Jimmy Schwab, Tiny Mulhern, Bill Miller, Dick De Grouchy and John Ingram as his aides. As Sophomores we elected Harry Brindle class President and Austin Sec- retary-Treasurer. We had other leaders, but they only came into their own after the breakup of the class. The majority of the original class stayed at Lehigh for almost two years. In those days the draft regulations were lenient with engineering students. Many of that class took the Summer of 1942 off, despite the accelerated program, and the class immediately split into ' 45 and ' 45X. But that didn ' t detract from the class spirit and unity which was built up in those few short months before the seventh of December, Ours was a different kind of spirit. We all knew we would not be here long, so we went about getting our full taste of Lehigh, crowding four years of col- H