North Carolina State University - Agromeck Yearbook (Raleigh, NC)

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Fountain said. In fact, the cattle farm was right where the coHseum is. . t the end of Fountain ' s freshman year, the students felt that some form of student go ernment was in order. They were tired of the military dictatorship, so the student body organized a self-governing group in the fall of 1921. he said. The student body didn ' t reach above 1,000 until Fountain ' s junior year. His freshman class consisted of about 400 students, about half of the student body. When I entered here right after the war, there was a wave of prosperity, you see. The student body had a large infiltration of soldiers coming back from France, he said. In general, each person was on his own . . . You ' d come up here and pass it if you could, and if you couldn ' t, you didntr Fountain said he spent most of his time studying. There weren ' t any counselors, self-help workshops or advisors. In general, each person was on his own, he said. If someone found himself having difficulty with his work, he would go back to his professor. The idea, in general, was that you did it or you didn ' t do it. This whole business of advising and collaborating back and forth just wasn ' t thought of. You ' d come up here and pass it if you could, and if you couldn ' t, you didn ' t. Fountain does remember trying to form a tutoring club for football players. The word got around that one of State ' s best football players was failing in school and a group of students decided they wanted to help. It never panned out though, Fountain said. Although school was the major concern of students then as it is now, there were a few ways to release ten- sion. The YMCA, which was located on campus, pro- vided much of the entertainment back then. The YM- CA was about the only thing that could be compared to the student union. It had a few chairs sitting around, a few magazines, a bowling alley. Another form of entertainment was sporting events. Of course, there was a rivalry between State and Carolina. About 1912 or 1913, Chapel Hill refused to play and announced it the night before the game, he said. They simply refused to play. As 1 understand it, they complained that we were importing some profes- sionals and a few little things like that. We didn ' t play Chapel Hill anymore until my freshman year. And that was a big playup, I ' ll tell ya. The game was played at State; State lost by one point. Fountain recalled. Some of the players said, ' We ' ll come back next year. ' And a whole bunch of them came back, and we beat them the next year. But then they started beating us. Student Life ' 11

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A.M. Fountain, Class of 1923 When A.M. Fountain went to college he had some of the same problems as students nowadays encounter. He constantly found himself without money. What he majored in wasn ' t his life ' s am- bition. And he didn ' t date enough women to satisfy his curiosity of that area of life. When I got back home after graduating I think I told my mother, ' Well, I ' ve been to college for four years and never had a date with a girl, ' Fountain said, sitting in his Raleigh home. I did go to Meredith but I don ' t think you could call that a date. You herded up in the chapel and the old president (of Meredith) wandered up and down the aisles to see that you didn ' t get too close to one of the girls. The 82- year-old North Carolina native entered North Carolina State College of Agriculture and Engineering in 1919. He ma- jored in electrical engineering, graduating in 1923 with one of the highest grade-point averages in his class. When he first entered State, the college was in its 30th year of existence. He lived on the third floor of HoUaday Hall and ate in the basement of the same building. You had to eat in the dining room or you didn ' t eat, Fountain recalled. When I graduated we just started to get places to eat off campus. The food, as you can imagine, was always condemned as being terrible, but 1 gain- ed about 30 pounds. When Fountain was in his freshman year, plans were just get- ting under way to build a memorial clock tower. Construction of the Bell Tower didn ' t begin until 1921. State ' s few ad- ministrative, classroom and dining hall buildings were all on the Hillsborough Street side of the railroad tracks. During my undergraduate days, the area where the coliseum is was a farm, The YMCA Building (left) and the campus from the air (right) as they appeared in Fountain ' s day. 10 Student Life

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After Fountain graduated from State in 1923, he worked at Carolina Power and Light Co. His real am- bition was to write, though. He worked as a reporter at the Technician thoughout his four years at college and he was editor of the weekly newspaper during his senior year. Fountain got a scholarship soon afterward and returned to State to receive a masters degree in sociology. He wrote his thesis on people working at a cotton mill behind Peace College. It was during his graduate years that he wrote the words to State ' s alma mater. When I got my masters degree, I didn ' t have anything; all of my money was gone, Fountain recall- ed. He expected to go back to CP L and work his same job as before but found out his position had been Apparently there were other things for a N.C. State College student to do besides schoolwork. By looking closely at this unusual 1916 photograph (above) one may see an ancient automobile headlight and radiator, a cardboard battleship, a Cossack horseman, a faint Tompkins Hall in the left background and Ricks Hall in the right background. There is no explanation why this group picture was taken. Brooks Hall (right top), built in 1925, was once the college library. First, Se- cond, Third and Fourth Dorms, seen in this pastoral 1920 view (right bottom), were located near the pre- sent Quad area. 12 Student Life