St Olaf College - Viking Yearbook (Northfield, MN)

Page 19 text:

If any year stands out prominently in the annals of the class we think it would be the Junior year. .That year saw the new chapel ready for occupancy, and we partook in the general migration into the new quarters. ln that year we published our VIKING, and we must have done it well, for the general edict Forbidding-the-Further-Publishing-of-a-VIKING-Annually was issued shortly after it was launched. ln that year also we lost our honorary members who for three years, as parents true, had borne with us our triumphs and our defeats, our joys and our sorrows, but were then compelled to leave us, and we as or- phans had to pilot our way through the tempestuous seas of the Senior year. And just to top off the Junior year right we gave the Seniors '07 a reception, which though in itself not very fastidious or high-falutin', must still be classed fby all those who had the misfortune to be biddenj as one of the neverfto-be- forgotten affairs. As for the Senior year-it has but begun, its history is yet to be made: For us it already records two noteworthy events. We had the privilege of par- taking in the introduction at St. Olaf of Ujimmanasticksn as an art. This may not seem to be a big event in itself, but the pictures we carry with us of such athletes as Rorem clad in a gym-suit and doing a turning pole stunt according to Rousseau, or Bjorgum in the act of unhorsing the horse can never be blotted out of the memory. Again, the year '08 will ever be an auspicious one in St. 0laf's history as it marks the time when the enrollment first reached the coveted five hundred mark. No small event this in the story of St. 0laf's growth!-and it took place in one day. The few things here mentioned, together with a multitude of happy rem- iniscences from college days, will go to make up the cluster of forget-me-nots which the Seniors '08 will take with them as mementos of the College on the Hill. I-I. Ron. ,mil Wlylwiinynull -1:22. ,,.l1llili.f-'ml' o . .-5, bi' x fast' MUV 18

Page 18 text:

This definition is just the one we were looking for. We were not born a historian, and, when the task was assigned to us, we deplored the lack of ready material-for the class of '08 as a law-abiding class has never partaken in any escapades that would have made good historical reading. Still the class may have thought, or hoped, or at least feltn something in that direction and if that's history why we are safe and here goes for some. F or example, the class might have thought once upon a time that it would be making history and that it would at the same time be great sport to borrow the President's horse, without letting him know about it, and then blanket away the president of some other class, as, in joyful anticipation of the feed which was in store for himself and his classmates, he wended his way to the home of his honorary members. We say that such a thought may have been harbored, but the thought was not father to the deed and it was never done-not by the class of ,OS Again the present sedate Seniors might have felt, while they were still frisky Freshman, that of all days the Sixth, when visitors were plentiful, would be the fitting occasion for a grand-stand play which would let the outside world know that there really was a Freshman class in existence at St. Olaf. But we never allowed our feelings to carry us away and as a natural result there was no defiant '08 rag on the flag pole, no broken windows, no class-scraps, and no after-chapel lecture the following day when we were Freshies. But then these are not the things which make-a class great-there's con- solation in that. Greatness, as we look at it, consists in doing something. With that sense of the word in mind it is not for us to say that we have done anything that can be considered of historical importance, but we can at least carry with us the satisfaction which comes from feeling that we have done our duty as a class. Eile mit Weile has been our motto. l-lasten slowly and save the fire-works for the battles that come when school days are but memories of the past. If therecord books of the professors could in any manner be got at and investigated and statistics collected, we are so bold as to believe that they fthe statisticsj would show that as students we were neither exceptional nor verging on the other extreme. ln student organizations and student enterprises we have helped to bear our full share of the burdens. In oratorical contests and inter- collegiate debates, on athletic teams and elsewhere, we have had the privilege of being represented. 17

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