Miami University - Recensio Yearbook (Oxford, OH)

Page 12 text:

Qzatztzan We can imagine these students holding bachelor quarters in Harrison Hall, feasting on beef and pork, corn-meal and potatoes and corn-cakes and We can also understand how they must have rebelled at the rigid rules which the Board of Trustees adopted in 1818 and which said: that each stu- dent attend prayers each morning at the appointed buckwheat cakes of their own concoction. time t5 aan , and attend public worship on Sun- day; that no immoral pictures or literature, no pro- fanity, no spirituous liquors texcept with the per- mission of the teacheri , no drunkenness, no gambling, and no unnecessary noise be allowed in the college at the penalty of expulsion if caught? But we know that President Bishop, that utall, gaunt, and good, old Scotsman,, took the part of the students on many occasions and that the boys 1829. $0 awfinnes - - - loved him dearly. The students of that day loved debate and argument for its own sake, and thus it was that in the halls of Harrison were founded those literary societies, Erodelphian, Union Liter- ary Society, Epanthean Society, and Miami Hall. These societies held many and Vigorous debates, furnished the early radicals of the school, and con- tributed much of the early cultural development of Miami. There is indeed a wealth of tradition suggested by that hollow worn in the step of Harrison, by the feet of the students and faculty of Miami University during the course of a century and a quarter. We, too, are making tradition. What suggestion of us may the step of Old Main con- vey when another one hundred and twenty-hve years have passed into history. RELICS OF OLD MIAMI The Literary Register was an early publication written jointly by the students and faculty. from eastern perzodzcals. It contained local news and clipped items The publication was not issued after June, The Minutes Boole of tbe Erodelplzian Literary Society presents a record of much of the early. life of tbe unipersity. eral of tbe present fraternitzes owe tlzezr orzgzn. The Opera Omnia written by Francisci Baconi is one of the better preserved inczmabula found in the Alumni Library. books pictured lzere are unusual for their peculiar leather bindings, and their illustrations made from wood cuts. At the senior class day exercises each June it was the custom of tbe Sachem 0f the class to present the peace pipe bowl to the Junior class. The pipe in the picture was first presented by tlze class of 1869 to the T0 tlzis society seq;- lee otlzer aged class of .1870. This Ioo-year-old Air Rifle is an interesting relic of early days. It has a copper stock and bad to be prepared with a small band pump be- fore it could be fired.

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?Vinds whisper through ivies that my and sway Under the weight of age-old memories And a glorious jbast . . . Q JHE step of Harrison. What a wealth of tradition is suggested by the deep hollow that has been worn in it. For the many eager students who in the course of a cen- tury and a quarter have trod upon it, it has symbolized the threshold of the halls of learning. 9U In 1824 Harrison Hall was the only building of Miami University. In it were housed all the activities of the col- lege and the students also lived in it. In the Philadelphia Register and Na- tional Record of June 12, 1819, we find this description by a contemporary: The college is a large building of brick; it contains twelve rooms, one of which is oc- cupied as a library, another as a meeting house; the other ten are occupied by the students of whom, the last session there were twenty-two.,, We can picture the college men of those early days who had come by horseback, by canal boat, and by the lumbering Oxford stage in quest of knowledge at Miami University. And this university they found to be comprised of one building, the one evidence of civilization in the midst of forests, dense and black, with the stillness of their solitudes seldom broken save for the war-whoop of savages? In the Literary Register of October 20, 1819, we read that on October 19 of that year candles had to be lighted at the Sunday noon dinner because the air was so darkened by the enormous quantity of smoke arising from the surround- ing woods. This is evidence that these forests were a favors ite haunt of the Indians.

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In splotclves of gold and blue 5bad0w- Z i Z Stand the sunclad elm;- an 51: Like sentinel: 0f the past They rustle forgotten memories. I l