Salem State University - Clipper Yearbook

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Miss Goldsmith: Give me an example of taking a risk. Miss Cahoon: Coming into class without your lesson prepared. Mr. Arc-hibald,'after Miss Keene has sung an exercise while beating time vigorously with her pencil: Sing it again and omit the bass drum. Miss Giddings is so strict a vegetarian that she won't eat animal crackers. Heard in botany: Heat keeps the germs inactive, but when cooled down they are as bright and cheery as ever. Miss K: Turn up your coat collar if you're cold. Ruth: Will that keep my feet warm? Mr. Vinal: Now, Miss Chase, you may criticise the recitation. Miss Chase, drawling: Oh! it's very good, it's just like mine. Miss Martin: Miss Ellis, when the man has spent all the money which he needed for his living, what does he do next? b Miss Ellis, energetically: I should think he'd better go to work and earn 801118 IUOFC. Miss Titxromh, who has waded through a muddled recitation: Oh! dear, I can't think! I've just come up from the practice school. liow thc Juniors run their class meetings: one hundred nine votes, ninety-nine present. Give a sentence expressing a wish which is not fulfilled in the future. I wish I could get an A in English. ,fx -is -t 1 72 2 ff 'ii X . ,rg f r fi bar.-.ss sniff' , .' s- -1-J r -as ., art-5,x,, IH

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1 , I I l , Q' 633 Q pl ' l g J M' SF .ANP Orlftwfsff l if i7 ii5xE.a....,p f t pgggxip: l f Q--M 'ILT-diff FWZ, --'LJ'-.'l::k?4' F 'ik Jumons. Kitty, who has just got squelched in English: My, I Wish I could faint now the way Florence Ramsey does! QThe Juniors have been studying the subject of solutions in chemistry and their minds are full of itj. Mr. Whitman: How would you test beans for starch? Pupil, dreamily: Make a solution of beans. T ige: Oh! English, English! What have we not suffered in thy name? Miss Goldsmith: YVhat is the highest form of animal life? Student: The giraffe. Nora Collins: What is a related form of the sea-cucumber? Flippant Senior: A salt-water pickle. Miss Fitch, to soda clerk in Har1'is's,,: Have you any hand sapolio? Clerk: Yes. Miss Fitch, absent-mindedly: Give me a glass, please. A new theory has been advanced in zoology by Miss Perkins-An insect is a bird! and she proves it. The mid-year students also boast of a marvellous chemist. Miss Herlihy's latest attempt was a solution of beets., 17

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Mark Twain. It is surprising to note to how many people the name Mark Twain stands simply as that of a man who wrote nonsense, and who did rather unusual things. It is not only surprising, but really lamentable, when we consider how much real enjoyment they miss by not knowing him better. It is true, he had a love for strong effect, and especially for strong per- sonal effect, which led him to do rather striking things. This expressed itself in his dressing, which was at times eccentric, to say the least. For instance, he possessed a seal-skin coat which he almost invariably wore fur- side out. During the last part of his life he wore a complete suit of white serge at all times of the year, seeming to delight in the publicity which it gave him. He was never so happy as when clothed in his Oxford gown, which he wore on all possible occasions. It amused him greatly to see how he shocked supersensitive souls by these pranks, which were his way of expressing the boy element in his nature. For a literary man, Mark Twain was singularly lacking in those branches of culture which are usually considered necessary to the make-up of an author. He had no acquaintance with the classic Greek and Latin, and knew just enough German and Italian to make himself amusing. His schooling was brief and desultory, and deserves very little credit for his later fame. His style is entirely his own. He writes just as he must have thought, with very little regard for what went before or what is to fol- low. He quite frequently breaks off in the midst of a chapter, of a paragraph, even, and discusses a topic almost entirely foreign to the subject in hand, and after having discussed it to his heart's content, comes back to the original theme, and proceeds as calmly as if he had never left it. An illustration of this is shown in that chapter of the Connecticut Yankee in which the king and the Yankee are travelling incognito, and the Yankee is attempting, with very little success, to drill the king in his part. After telling us that the Yankee's instructions are simply so many words, as far as the king is con- cerned, Mark Twain begins a discourse on the utter futility of words in gen- eral, passes from that to a consideration of the law of work, and then comes back to the king and his minister. A great deal of his charm lies in his treatment of characters, and espe- cially of his boy characters. They are so essentially boyish and natural that they are delightful in themselves, and exceedingly valuable to us in interpret- ing their author's own nature. It is impossible to read '4Tom Sawyer without seeing in him a portrayal of Mark Twain himself, and in his happy-go-lucky philosophy that dauntless spirit which served to carry Mark Twain through the many misfortunes of his later years. 19