Northern Illinois University - Norther Yearbook (DeKalb, IL)

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as if we should need to have only one entering class a year. This is a delightful prospect. The winter has been long and severe, but good health has been the rule. This out-door life seems indeed to be quite the thing for many of the girls, for they have steadily increased in health as the season has advanced. Commencement day will soon be here again and almost fifty will receive their official endorsement at the hands of President Goodrich. This is quite phenomenal for an Illinois Normal school. The school at Normal, which opened its doors in 1857, never touched the forty mark until 1896, and then as if it had quite exhausted itself it fell below it the succeed- ing year. The largest class that our friends at Carbondale have so far sent out falls a little short of the thirty mark, so that we feel that we have done pretty fairly, by comparison, at any rate. All success in the world is relative and if we do as well as our neighbors- especially when they are such good neighbors-we ought to feel some little sense of satisfaction. But what of the future? That is always the insistent question. It is the land of hope and promise. Respect- ing it we can only say that the auguries are favorable. The summer school will open on the 24th of June and the indications now are that we shall have a respectable attendance -respectable in quality, of course, but also in numbers. It is getting noised about northern Illinois at last that there is a Normal school at DeKalb and that we have abundant room in our building for ive hundred students, and admirable accommodations in our club houses and private families for nearly the same number, and that the faculty, after its two years of experience, has come to know itself pretty thoroughly, and that we are ready for whatever the future may have in store for us. At this writing the general assembly has show11 itself to be satisfactorily gracious. The strong box will be quite well supplied with the sinews of war. We shall have the needed teacher of literature, and the director of physical training and the long desired music teacher, and a thing or two more that need not inow be mentioned. We trust that we have shown ourselves worthy of patronage and that the young people from northern Illinois who want to be teachers and who are well equipped with academic disciplines will come to us for the professional training which we believe will be of great help to them in their gracious ministry of caring for the young. Thus far we have been sailing on comparatively unruflied seas. There have been no annoying conflicts of any character. The people of the town have accepted us at our own estimate, and that ought to be high enough, surely. And so with high hopes and buoyant spirits, and abundant enthusiasm we are looking out toward the new years that are hurrying this way. May we be worthy of our great calling. 18

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Zlihe 1Flormal School in 1Retrospect emo llbrospect HE Northern Illinois State Normal School is at last a two-year-old. Its second brood will soon M rn leave the nest and try their wings in independent flight. The trying days of the Hrst term in the l fall of 1899 when we shut ourselves in a few rooms and tried to forget the noises of the workmen are with the years beyond the Hood. And yet, our first day when we gathered in the study hall, talked together for a little t11ne, enrolled, decided upon the lessons ror the next day and separated to prepare for the first recitation -it all seems but yesterday. Dear, dear! And to what strange country do the hurrying months betake themselves? And the anxious days when we wondered where our people were to live, when we had room for two more but not for three- they are gone, too, thank heaven! And while we are thanks- giving let us not forget the Ellwood Syndicate that built for us the roomy and comfortable club houses. And do you not remember how soon we settled down to business and were an old-fashioned, genuine school, and all within a week? And the crimson days with their resplendent gorgeousness- when did another institu- tion have such a send-off? And dedication day, with the proverbial DeKalb weather, when our well-laid plans went all wrong, and the grove and the thousands of comfortable seats were left to the rain while we crowded into the gym. and stood up for two mortal hours and never complained? Good speeches they were, too - Governor Tanner and President Draper and Superintendent Bright and Senator Berry, Doctor Andrews. Colonel Ellwood and the rest. And the wonderful evening function with the lovely ladies in their exquisite gowns and the beauti- ful queen of the carnival with her charming maids? Well, it was a great day and the weather man could not spoil it, let him try ever so hard. , The first year slipped away so pleasantly and so quickly that the two ends of ittseem to be quite pushed together. Commencement came on as a sort of surprise and our sweet sixteen with their brand new sheep- skins which never were before, were out in the world ready to immortalize their alma mater. W'ith the summer school on hand small space we had for resting. Nearly one hundred and sixty were with us for the greater part of the live weeks, and at last when the wind-up came, near the close of july, we drew the Hrst long breath and hurried away to the woods to get that blessed renewal for the new year which is so necessary to the weary school- master and schoolma'am. . With the reopening of the school, in September, as many appeared as had been enrolled in the whole course of the first year. And such good pupils, too- So per cent. of them high school graduates. Aurora and Elgin turned out in force and several other cities followed suit, while the smaller towns were by no means unrepresented. The year has gone off charmingly. We have learned that northern Illinois stands by. It really begins to look I7

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