Swarthmore College - Halcyon Yearbook (Swarthmore, PA)

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THE HALCYON OF NINETEEN SEVENTEEN was then Registrar, and she helped us all, especially Doctor Magill with the cork game. Another good friend of mine was Miss Cunningham, and we still meet oc- casionally and renew old times. Arthur Beardsley was Professor of Engineering, and the men he turned out are his monument. Gerrit Weaver was Professor of German. He was a good ama- teur naturalist and an altogether delightful fellow, who passed a hobnailed liver from our midst too soon. He it was who showed me how to make a cuspidisr out of a waste basket, by building a sort of rats ' nest. We were in great jeopardy in those days — we users of the vile weed. I was reported once by a Co-ed for riding in the smoker. (I don ' t think she was a very pretty Co-ed and that made it not so bad). The largest font of type used in the catalogues of those days, aside from the cover, referred m no un- certain terms to the use of tobacco. Doctor Magill almost rivalled James the Second in his famous Counterblast — the insidious habit, the hellward slope, alcoholic sclerosis hobnailed liver, were pictured in lurid colors. And yet I am still living, and comparatively sane and well. Magill had a very effective way of getting students to own up as participants in some disturbance. He would harangue the student body at Collection or some other time, and then, holding a folded paper in his hand, would say: I have the names of all those students who were in that disturbance right here in my hand; it is useless for you to try to evade this. What the good doctor held was the pages from the catalogue, with the list of all students. It was a good joke, too good to keep, and the President himself, I believe, finally gave it away. We always looked for trouble on the floors at Hallowe ' en, and were s - | not disappointed. That autumn of ' 88, when I was on duty, some boy had a cow-bell that jangled loudly in various parts of the West Wing oft in the stilly night. For several nights Doc- tor Magill sat up with me into the wee, small hours. I can see him now in his wrapper, scouting around like an Indian. He thor- THE ELUSIVE COW-BELL Page Fourteen

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THE HALCYON OF NINETEEN SEVENTEEN administration closed. In April, 1 888, I first met him, when I was a candidate for the Chair of Biology. He took me into his office, I remember, and showed me a wonderful scheme that he had invented for arranging the program of class work. A large board was fastened against the wall, and this was divided by lines, vertical and horizontal, into spaces to represent the days of the week and the hours of each working day. In these spaces auger holes were bored, into which corks fitted, each cork having pasted on its top the name of some course. Doctor Magill would play a regular game, moving these corks about to get the courses in their right places and avoid conflicts. It was a great old time- table, and very graphic. When I took up the work in September, 1 888, I was handed a small notebook, made out by the President, of the work assigned me. There were Zoology- Botany (double-headers for both Freshman and Sophomore Classes), laboratory courses for the Juniors and Seniors, a course in Geology, and Physiology for the young men. Every other hour of daylight was marked Work in the Museum. Beside all this, I took charge of study hour in Collection Hall three even- ings a week for an hour and a half, and the third and fourth West Wing floors all the rest of those evenings. They were some evenings. Lights went out somewhere around nine o ' clock; after that I was supposed to go on a still hunt, looking out for illicit candles. Once I was invited by certain boys — Morris Clothier, Lex Cummins, Bill Sproul, and other kindred spirits — to a late and clandestine feed. I went, had a good time, and said nothing about it. Dean Bond (Elizabeth Powell Bond) was then styled Matron, a charming woman whom we all love and who is still with us at times. I met Doctor William Hyde Appleton that spring of ' 88, and began one of the finest friendships I have known. His influence at Swarthmore has been unique, and no mat- ter how hackneyed the phrase may be, one thinks of Doctor Appleton always as the gentleman and the scholar. and it is the privilege of many to know him more intimately as friend. Miss Esther T. Moore (now Mrs. Appleton) THE NAUGHTY WASTE BASKET THE FURTIVE CANDLE Page Thirteen

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THE HALCYON OF NINETEEN SEVENTEEN oughly enjoyed the sport of still hunting. That bell seemed possessed; it could not be located. After several nights of scout work, I went home for some days with tonsilitis. Before I got back to college I received a post card from Doctor Magill, wishing me a speedy recovery, and addmg, Have got the bell. That was Doctor Magill; but do not misunderstand; he was a great teacher, too, and in those days a college prex had to be a bit stiff as a disciplinarian. When Doctor Magill resigned in 1889, and took the Chair of French, after a year abroad. Doctor William H. Appleton was elected President of the college and served three years, but resigned at the end of that time, preferring the life of a scholar. Trotter, ' Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown, ' he once remarked. During these years, Will Hall was the Supe. He was the brother of Mrs. Chester Roberts; a most lovable man, and his memory will always live in the hearts of those who knew him, and and in the gymnasium that honors his name. Our Librarian, John Russell Hayes, poet and book-lover, and delightful friend, graduated in 1 888, the year I came, and later was appointed instructor in English. I recall, too, William Penn Holcomb, the Professor of History, (Doctor Hull came in the early nineties) ; Ferris W. Price, Professor of Latin, an accomplished botanist and a kindly friend; and William C. Day, the Professor of Chemistry. Day was an earnest man, and was, if I remember, the one who started the Joseph Leidy Scientific Society. By his untimely illness and death the college lost a strong, good man. This puts me in mind of Leidy, a name famous throughout the scien- tific world. He was the first Professor of Biology at Swarthmore, and the founder of the Museum Collection. After his resignation on account of advancing years. Doctor Charles Dolly held the post for three years, and I was appointed after he resigned. It is a some- what curious coincidence, but neither of the three professors of Biology has ever lived at Swarthmore. The splendid collection that Doctor Leidy had labored so hard to build up during the early years, was utterly destroyed at the time of the great fire in 1882. The fire occurred some years before I came, and by that time Leidy had built up a second natural history collection. When I first came to Swarthmore, the word Biology was not in use as a departmental term ; I was appointed Professor of Natural History, and I often think that it is quite as appropriate and needs less of an explanation to begin- ners. There are many others who come to mind, but space for- bids — only the name of Benja- min Smith, a fatherly man who lived with his wife on the first ?e p .- SCOUTING ON FOURTH WEST Page Fifteen