Princeton University - Nassau Herald Yearbook (Princeton, NJ)

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THE NASSA U .HERALD 17 the paths. However, we took his word for it, as we had once before taken that of an old gentleman, who told us in strictest confidence, that i He was a wandering sheep, he did not love the fo-ld. 4 , Out of the materials thus kindly furnished the addresses of to- day have been manufactured. Then, too, as was suggested,'the speeches' have been submitted to the inspection of the Faculty and the Class Day Committee. Why, even Devereux looked through them, managed to spell out some of the little words, and I fear his hands were then about as clean as usual. - But I amafraid our overwhelming gratitude is carrying us too far away from the real business of this day. Let me but add,ithat I hope you will appreciate the high morality of all these pro- ductions, for they contain not a trace of agnosticism, pantheism, heresy or popery. Personalities, offensive and defensive, have been carefully excluded. And as for the vulgarity over which the Faculty went so wild, I assure youis confined entirely to J im McC'onkey's speech, and Bliss' 'Class Ode. r Now let us turn our whole attention 'to that remarkable group of young men who to-day are gathered to receive the rewards of four years' hard smoking, steady-floating, careful shenannygag- ging and other accomplishments, that will appear as we proceed. They are known to the New York reporters as the demons -of ?8O, called so from a certain playfulness exhibited by them in earlier life, especially in Sophomore year. A little more than half the demons graduate this year, a few will get diplomas next year, and the rest-but was it not honor enough for them to have belonged to '8O? These demons pride themselves chiefly upon their skill in athletics, and they have quite a' number of athletes of all shapes and sizes, ranging from the gigantic J or- dan, -the hammer-tlirower, down to the diminutive Brotherlin, the double trapeze and feather-weight man, including, of course, Tewksbury, the pegfpole climber, Duncan at dancing school, where the Freshman would tramp his toes, Bill Schenck, behind the ,home-plate, and Stanley before -a dinner-plate, and most of all, the great Jim Anderson, in his unrivaled performances upon, . A B

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16 THE NASSA U HERALD. asking, Do you smoke ?7' ln nineteen out of twenty well-auf thenticated cases an affirmative answer is given, and the victim joyfully reaches for the weed. But Butch puts it in his pocket, and blandly remarks, H Ah I so does Mike Dunn? This report was rejected unanimously because of the originality of the spell- ing, which showed plainly that Dick Conover had been called in to assist the committee, and then, too, it was thought that to ap- preciate Butch' s sells,lrequired a more intimate acquaintance with him than was hoped any of our visitors hadj 5 At this stage of the game, the Faculty being on the 'C in loco parenifis '7 racket again, came to our relief, and furnished a great many suggestions, ---T think, they called them-and plans, and all that sort of gratis entertainment, for which we can never be too grateful. A few instances of their kindness may, perhaps, not be out of place here. For example, one of them QI don't believe any of you can guess his namuelthought we ought, per- haps, to have one joke, to be gotten off in sections, each speaker doing a fair share of the work. He even offered as a splendid joke of his, one that belonged to his professorship. His prede- cessor had used it. He himself had used it, with fearful eH'ect', upon thirty-tive classes, and it was good for thirty-tive more. Why, it had never been known to fail. In fact, it was about the dizaiest joke he had ever heard. That settled it. VVe eX- plained that very likely' the Lynde Debaters-Pussy Parkhill, J im Galbraith and that crowd-a few of the Glee Club, and some stray' members of '81 would be present, and on their account it Wouldn7t be rightto have anything so violently exciting. Another Professor offered us stacks of poetry: all about the still, sad music of lhumanityf ' He thought it would add greatly to the general effect if we would refer to that topic about every three minutes.. Then the Professor of Pumps, Plank-walks and Pinnacles brought a tin bucketful of art lectures, which he assured us, whether read from the beginning to the end, or from the end to the beginning, or from the middle in both direct-ions at once, were equally interesting and instructive. And then he wandered away to his pleasant task of running barbed wires across our favorite short-cuts, and sprinkling coal ashes over ll l l l 1 I l i 4Anf.,..,... M., ,M ,...a........, l....-...--- e-ina 'gm -,N ,.,,,nf-'funn-i4llb-win-'

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18 THE NASSAU HERALD. the back-stop in the snob base-ball ground. Yet from this list I must really exclude Guillon, who should have picked the crew, played third base on the nine, and taken heaps of prizes, as he no doubt would have, had he only roomed in Northeast. Of course I cannot reward all these men, yet if such J ATHLETES ' a as John WVilds, lVIacLaren, Judge Horton, Poller Greene and Massey will step up, I7ll do my best for them. This is John Wilds, gymnast, physically, mentally, morally. 'His record is immense. Did he not once run three miles with the Hare and Hounds? Did he not get lost and get sick, and sleep in a barn? And didnit an old farmer bring him home next day in a spring wagon? Then, too, hasn' t John got about themost gymnastic conscience in this College? In Fresh. year, after handing in a perfect Greek paper, he meekly and quietly wentdown to the fourth division. Still later he sold his room to a confiding Junior for316.50, and when that Junior came to take possession the room contained just one wooden bracket and a U Mfugf' The amount of good advice that John scatters around during Lit. elections is equalled only by his hard luck at all other elections. His only rival, as far as pure brute strength goes, is Greene. To see these two men in the Gymnasium is in- deeda sight. VVhile John swings all the-dumb-bells at once, Greene amuses himself by putting up all the biggest Indian clubs. But their strong pointis when they are outside of the Gym. with the hammer and the shot. After much thought, I have concluded that for them I can find no more appropriate gifts than these: To John, this medal for throwing the hammer --the'tack-hammer--across his room 5 to Greene, this one for putting the shot--the buck-shot--five feet. Both, as tin' as I know, the- best-on-record scores. MacLaren was Captain and stroke of la.st year's 'Varsitxy but now pulls No. 2. Yet he didnlt come in iirst at Philadblphia last summer, but that's easily explained. His crew was thc best on the water 5 of course it was. Why, it was laughable to sec those spindle-shanked Philadelphians and those wrecks from Columbia row! The idea of their beating the Captain and his