Purdue University - Debris Yearbook (West Lafayette, IN)

Page 33 text:

I don t think I need to say anything to arouse an interest in intercollegiate contests, but I would like to say something regarding the proper regulation of our general enthusiasm. We are so loyal to our own heroes and so eager for victory that sometimes we overlook the simple and common sense rules which should govern all field sports. When a team, accompanied by a band of rooters, comes to La Fayette from Wabash or Champaign or the I. U., it is just as well to remember that these men are merely our rivals in an honest sport — our antagonists, whom we are going to overthrow if we can, but not necessarily our deadly enemies. A visiting team and visiting students should never be treated as if they were unwelcome invaders. With all of our defiant yelling and whooping and singing, it behooves the young men of the university to remember that they are supposed to be civilized human beings, with ordinarily generous instincts. Because some other school violates the ethics of good sport and introduces rowdy tactics into a game, is no reason why we should descend to the vulgar methods of professionalism. The young men from the rival college are probably of about the same stripe as the young men of Purdue. They are neither better nor worse. They come from the same towns and cities of the middle west, and they have had the same careful bringing up, and they are just about equally impetuous and coltish when they get away from restraint. It is not good sense or good manners to call them ugly names because they happen to be pitted against us in some important contest. I have seen an excited crowd on a football field stand up and shriek with joy when a good player of the opposing team was being carried off, badly injured. This is one symptom of loyalty which, it seems to me, is too extreme for any fair-minded partisan. We can learn a few things from the English regarding fair play in sports and courteous treatment of opponents. Even in the eastern part of the United States the teams representing the big colleges observe more carefully the ethics of sport. There is no complicated etiquette to be learned; simply respect the au- thority of the officials, do not take unfair advantage of your opponents, and treat them as if they were decent fellows. If they are not decent fellows, you, as a representative of a first- class college, have no business to be playing with them. I hope the day is not far off when bickerings, quarrels and personal epithets will be unknown on any field where good col- lege teams are playing. The players are seldom the offenders, and I should like to believe that most of the offensive tactics in the crowd originate among outsiders. There is always a mucker element in every college town which attaches itself to a winning team and gives it a very blatant support just as long as it is winning. It seems to me that if the students were united in sentiment they could regulate not only the men in the college but the outsiders who have been responsible for the riotous methods sometimes exhibited at college games, but which prop- erly belong on the 25-cent bleachers at a professional ball game. I am happy to say that so far as my observation goes, Purdue is not the chief offender in the middle west, but I will say furthermore that every college in the middle west seems to have a minority element that should be put into the background and soothed down to good behavior.

Page 32 text:

growth of twenty years is fairly represented by this amazing ci mtrast. When we were here the college had a few small buildings. Now 11 lias many buildings— some of them very large. The nebulous curriculum has settled itself into definite schools of intensely practical purpose, while the timid and experimental spin of the old time has been supplanted by a triumphant sense of big accomplishments. The student life, which used to be simple and provincial and confined to a few homely ruts, has become, as you might say, cosmopolitan and metropolitan. Formerly our activities were concentrated upon the social rivalries and inner politics of three literary societies. Nowadays the college man who is fairly enterprising and many-sided will claim membership in a fraternity, a glee club, an athletic team, a debating society, a brotherhood of engineers, the track team and the baseball nine. The most remarkable development of the last twenty years— because it is one of which the first ten years gave so little prom- ise — is the gradual enlarging of the student life into many com- plex affiliations. Our class of twenty years ago instituted class day and made a feeble effort to have field day exercises, although, of course, we had no track team, no training, no notion of how to manage track events, and the whole afternoon was as amateurish as the games and sports of a Sunday School picnic. However, some one had to make a start and inoculate Purdue University with the germ of the athletic spirit, and I am happy to say that our class did it. Within five years the whole body of students and professors was overwhelmingly interested in football, baseball ami track sports, and although we have encountered varying fortunes. since athletics at Purdue took such a great boom with the de- velopment of the star football team of 1892, there is every rea- son to believe that the interest will abide and that Purdue will continue to be a factor in intercollegiate athletics of the middle west. Let us hope so. Let us hope also that with the completion of the new gym- nasium every man attending Purdue may be given a course in physical culture under careful supervision. I am a great be- liever in the championship football, baseball and track teams. I have traveled long distances to root for them. 1 have rejoiced in their victories, and when they were badly licked I have ac- companied them to the vale of gloom and mingled my bitter tears with theirs. I am for good winning teams at any rea- sonable cost of time or trouble, or even money properly spent, but also I am an advocate of athletics for all. A college training is about three times as efficacious if it is associated with a hard set of muscles, a good pair of bellows, a jumping circulation and a sound digestion. Purdue will continue to take an absorbing interest in ath- letic sports. No doubt boat-racing will come in. The Wabash River would afford an excellent course during nearly all of the seasons in which rowing would be advisable, and I could not imagine a more glowing spectacle for Commencement Week than a race between four class crews down the river and finish- ing under Main Street Bridge. Football had a little set-back this year, but we have had other set-backs in other years, and we are sure to get back into our stride before long. In baseball and basketball we have al- ways held our own. and in track athletics we have been as good as anybody in the State. We could hardly hope to dominate the big interstate contests with so much important competition.

Page 34 text:

Sp§§g23 1IIS department is the oldest oi Purdue ' s en- | ( ,Gjf LlIL tf l| gineering schools. During the sixth year of [feS r I $)} l,u ' university ' s existence, 1878-1879, all studies HKj i ' ZjjJ were divided into three courses: Science, Agri- tly v« »» »i ))l culture and Mechanics, the latter course being £3§sl±i§3l±!S die Forerunner of our present department of Mechanical Engineering. As may be said of all work of the institution, mechanical engineering received its first impetus during the presidency of Dr. Smart, and it was through his far- sightedness and the genius of our justly famous dean. Profes- s,.r Goss that brought into existence this department ' s present pride — the locomotive laboratory. It was this unique and novel plant that attracted the attention of the world to a growing university, and today the name Purdue is almost synonymous u nli 1. ici imotive performance. Mechanical engineering, however, has many other fields than railroading, and the work of our school caters to many of these. The growing gas engine industry is receiving more attention at Purdue each year, as is evidenced by the many new pieces of apparatus. Among the most noteworthy of these may be mentioned the four new automobile gas engines, aggre- gating 106 horse power. The most powerful is a 60 horse power Yale engine, which is a four-cylinder machine, while the Ru- tenber four-cylinder is rated at 30 horse power, and the new Continental two-cylinder at 16. A 6 horse power two-cycle two-cylinder marine engine, with propeller and water tank, has brought to the university a new and difficult problem in design; that of making a dynamometer which will successfully measure, simultaneously, both torque and thrust upon a rod.