Lehigh University - Epitome Yearbook (Bethlehem, PA)

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first play for Mustard and Cheese, Mary, the Child of Misfortune , a highly successful burlesque melodrama. He played football in its earliest davs at Le- high, and his account of the sport at that period, which appeared in the Lehigh Quarterly of 1891, speaks of Jake Robeson, the father of football at Lehigh, and the first game ever played here: J. S. Robeson, ' 86, or ' Jake Robeson, is the father of football at Lehigh. He had played the game at the Germantown Academy, and it was due to him that it was taken up in South Bethlehem. It was he who induced the Sophomores of the University of Pennsylvania to send their eleven up to play an eleven from ' 86 on December 8, 1883, and it was he who captained the Varsity team the fol- lowing year. This game with the 86 eleven of LT. of P. was the first game played at Lehigh, and though it was raining at the time and the grounds were covered with eight inches of mud, over 300 spectators came out to see it played and stood through it until the end, which was a victorv for the visitors bv a score of 16-10, There was no grass on the athletic field then, nothing but rocks, tin cans, and a soft quicksand of mud. As the Lehigh Sophomore team had never .played before, their jackets were as white as when they came from Geisendar- fer ' s shop, where they had been patterned after the only one in the college, one owned by Robeson, and of which we were all very envious. It was so muddy that the players feet actually became fast in it, and ' Bish Howe, the other half back, called pathetically every few minutes, ' Don ' t pass that ball to me, Jake; I ' m stuck in the mud and I can ' t get out. ' When the varsity took the field in 1884 and challenged all comers, Rolieson, Knorr, Bradford, and C. B. David were the only men who had played the game before, and in the first match with Lafayette, which was the first University game played by Lehigh, the other seven men had learned what little they knew about it in three weeks ' practice on the class elevens. We elected Robeson captain, chiefly, I think, on account of his possessing the real footljall jacket before mentioned, and practiced daily on the stones and broken bottles of the athletic grounds. Then we prevailed upon the college to pay S52 for eleven brown and white jerseys, and then we thought what we did not know about the game was not worth learning. With this idea we went down to Easton and played the first of those memorable games which year by year became just so many triumphs for Lehigh until she now can afford to leave Lafayette out of the regular schedule and telegraph her for a substitute game whenever another team fails to fill a date. But it was not that wav then. The score of that first PICTURE: Packer Memorial Church. The chapel, erected in 1887 and dedicated to the founder of the University, was the gift of his daughter, Mrs. Mary Packer Cunimings. ■17-

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game was 52-0, and my chief recollections of it consists of personal encounters with the spectators and Easton policemen who had an instinctive prejudice to Lehigh men which they expressed hy kicking them on the head whenever one of them went under the ropes for the ball. In addition to the Burr there appeared another pul)lication, the Epitome, which has been puJilished annually since 1875. Twenty years later the Brown and White made its debut. In the same year that Davis founded Arcadia, Prof- essor Edward Williams founded Tau Beta Pi, the national honorarv engineer- ing fraternity. The Lehigh chapter of Phi Beta Kappa was founded two years later, in 1887. The first course society, the Chemical Society, was organized in 1871, and in 1887 the Electrical Engineers ' Society was started. Around the turn of the century the Summer School, the College of Arts and Science, and Fritz Lab were added to the school. The Arts College was an outgrowth of the School of General Literature. During this period Lehigh had money difficulties, and only an appropriation of .$150,000 from the state, along with many donations ])y the alumni, had enabled Lehigh to keep going. Before World ar I caused a cessation of the normal activities and growth of Lehigh several additions were made to the campus. Lamberton Hall, the Col- lege Commons, was built as well as Taylor Gym and Field, and Coppee Hall became a class building. The Band was organized, and Cyanide was founded. Sayre Park and the Arboretum were added to the LTniversity grounds. The war brought about an all-out war effort ])y the University, for it was realized that the nation needed highly trained technical men more than ever before. As was the case in World W ar II the academic program was accelerated, and the Student Army Training Corps, predecessor of the ROTC, was organized. Every physically fit student over 18 had to join the corps, which was housed in the fraternities and dormitories on the campus. A curriculum in Marine Engin- eering was also established. Fortunately, the normal routine was disturbed for only a few months, since the early end of the war permitted the return to a normal status. In 1918 the University was divided into the three colleges, the College of Arts and Sciences, the College of Business Administration, and the College of Engineering. Rapid expansion followed in this, the Modern Era of Lehigh ' s historv. Charles Russ Richards became Lehigh ' s president in 1921, and a Greater Lehigh Fund, total- ling two million dollars, was established by alumni, friends, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Carnegie Foundation. The Alumni Memorial Building, a PICTURE: James Ward Packard Laboratory of Electrical and Mechanical Engineering. The building was the gift of James Ward Packard, ' 88, designer of the first Packard motor car. 18