Millersville University - Touchstone Yearbook (Millersville, PA)

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24 THE HAMMER. head. Miss---------meets them at the door and takes them into the reception hall, where the ladies pile their evening wraps on a table and the gentlemen dispose of their hats. Dinner is waiting, so they repair unceremoniously to the spacious dining room, where they partake of a very elaborate dinner. After dinner they go to the parlor, where they engage in talking, laughing, playing and singing until late. Some one suggests that the class history be read, so the class historian reads the following: There is one of our number who while at school had always shown a disposition to inquire into the why and wherefore of every affair. After leaving school he had strange wishes to go deep into scientific pursuits, to contend with nature and wrest from her some secret or some power which had hitherto been held from mortal grasp. His chief aim was to produce new forms of vegetable life, to create an insect of nothing higher in the living scale. Although not having up to this time secured his desired result, he has given to the world some marvelous scientific discoveries. He is well known throughout the country as the scientist, Benjamin K. Lehman, of Denver. The class has produced one great author. She was known to us during the Senior year as one who was thoroughly fascinated by Kipling. It was her greatest pleasure to read and re-read his works all her leisure moments, to quote from him when illustrations were called for in grammar class. Upon leaving school she became, if possible, a more eager reader and student of Kipling, and finally decided that she, too, would write. Her first poems were published in the various magazines of the country, and everywhere attracted attention on account of their similarity to Kipling’s works. In 1810 there was an incomplete edition of her works published by the American Book Company. I have just been inofrined that a complete edition is shortly to issue from the press at Philadelphia. Miss Hemperly is at present living in Harrisburg, where she spends much of her time content in her comfortable library. In marked contrast are two others of our class, who after leaving school indulged more freely than ever in the social world. Miss Bess Jennings made her debut in Washington in 1905, and Miss Florence Ely in the year following in Cleveland. In brief,

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Class Prophecy. FLORENCE R. REISER. TT IS Class Day at the Millersville Normal. The month is June; the year, nineteen hundred and eighteen. In the chapel two hundred and three Seniors are giving their history, prophecy, statistics, etc., in the presence of a large audience of relatives, friends, and alumni. The ushers hover noiselessly about the chapel doors; the audience keep up a perpetual waving and rustling of fans, for the day is hot. Among the crowd in the gallery, members of the class of nineteen-three look down with intensest interest, for they are no longer Alumni battling with the cold, cruel world, but Seniors come to live over again the life of fifteen years ago. Now the exercises are over. Parents and other attachments are being towed around in every direction by the elegantly dressed Seniors, who seem to be alarmingly unconscious of the heat. The Alumni visit their favorite spots of the campus, steal into the observatory, music buildings, glance up at the residences of the various professors and other edifices which have been erected since their departure. Twilight approaches. But twilight will soon be replaced by a cheerful moon. Many now follow the path to the dining hall, where dinner is to-day served at seven. But who compose the jovial crowd of about twenty who are moving in an opposite direction? The students explain to those who are with them that they are the famous class of nineteen hundred and three, the first class of the new course. They have returned to celebrate their fifteenth anniversary, and are this evening being entertained by Miss---------at the Waldorf Hotel. But let us follow these apparently very interesting persons to their destination. Past beautiful residences, fraterinty houses (for Millersville is now a typical college town), this class wends its way to the Waldorf. On the piazza many stout Japanese lanterns flutter over-

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CLASS PROPHECY. 25 Miss Jennings met a lonely naval officer, Mr. Jenkins, and married him. Miss Ely met a self-made merchant, Mr. Howards, and they were married. If Hawthorne were describing their homes he would say, “They comprise extensive pleasure grounds with mansion houses in the construction of which it has been their object to realize castles in the air, hardening the shadowy walls into granite. Beautiful enough to vanish like a dream, yet substantial enough to endure for centuries. The gorgeous furniture, the refinement of upholstery and all the luxurious artifices combine to render these residences places where life might flow onward in a stream of golden days undisturbed by the ruggedness which fate loves to fling into it.” You will doubtless remember the captain of the Senior Basket Ball Team. Under Mr. Herbert Roeder’s care many were the times we defeated the Middlers. Ah, those insignificant Middlers! And yet we remember them and retain a certain love in our hearts for them—partly sympathy, I presume. Well. Mr. Roeder on leaving the Normal took a course in physical culture at Harvard, and has now under his charge the college men there. There was another young man who was elected treasurer whenever any organization to which he belonged had money to be considered. He was elected not because he was so generous with it, for often when we made requests for sums, no matter how small, we were confronted by the question, “Is it necessary?” or “That much?” or some similar remark. But at the end of the year we were always pleased with the large amount of money on hand, and we congratulated ourselves on our economy, when in reality it was Mr. I). Augustus Swope’s management. He can now be found seated at his desk in his office on Wall Street, where he spends his days and most of his nights, with a pen behind his ear and a pair of mysterious spectacles on his nose, speculating. During our Senior year, you cannot fail to remember, it was our good fortune to have a gentleman lecture to us on social efficiency, paper folding and the like. You remember the marvelous houses, ducks, etc., which that man could produce out of brightly colored papers four inches square, caused the class to reverence him, and we were continually held spellbound. He