Swarthmore College - Halcyon Yearbook (Swarthmore, PA)

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THE HALCYON OF NINETEEN SEVENTEEN Some of Swarthmore ' s Old Timers T HE Meeting House and the Cherry Tree, both ho ary with age, have been sung in lyric and blank verse ever since The Halcyon first flapped his wings over the College with the Cupola. Crum Creek also — naughty stream, thou dost nowadays flaunt an unbecoming and un-Swarthmorean tint of garnet, and wouldst sadly offend the artistic sense of the New York Swarthmore Club (see Dr. Roy ' s letter — Can Pink and Magenta With Loyalty Be Called Garnet? — published in The Phoenix). Aliarum rerum laudes carto, and I will begin with the Alligator. The Alligator represents the spirit of our woods incarnate. Although the Classical Department, abetted by the Fine Arts, would with indulgence allow us still to people our groves with dryads, fauns, and Pan himself, practical and unpoetic Pedagogy says nay; that we could not pass the test of- fered to a child of eight years did we be- lieve in such psychological delusions; and that neither itself nor staid Philosophy can allow us more than the Alligator. Well, thousands of students have eaten sandwiches and sausages upon his rugged back, and thousands more will probably partake there of the same delicacies. We wonder whether the viands served at splendid banquets to our Senator Sproul, Morris Clothier, A. Mitchell Palmer, et les auires, are seasoned with the same sauce which they used to taste when feasting near the Alligator. And we would fain ask Mrs. Helen Magill White if she found the dishes upon kings ' tables moredelicious than the impromptu spreads of yore beneath the Swarthmore trees. Our next Old timers come in a group — the Ivies of Parrish Hall. If you will examine their individual biographies, you will be surprised to discover their aristo- cratic connections. Few are of plebeian origin, most of them having been brought from conservative colleges and minsters, castles and palaces. Were the Ivies in- troduced at Swarthmore to teach the feminine portion of our student body the mediaeval lesson of the Clinging Vine? Thou shade of dear Lucretia Mott, and ye more substantial shadows of Hannah Clothier Hull, Mary Hibbard Thatcher, and Ellen Evans Price, no! They were put here to impart the object lesson that tender and not self-seeking vines are willing to cover the blemishes of sterner stuff, and that they remain faithful to their early attachments. THE ALLIGATOR J Page Nineteen

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THE HALCYON OF NINETEEN SEVENTEEN tain students (always entertaining and very much to the point). The hbrary used to be presided over by Miss Nowell, a kindly lady and a lover of wild flowers. The old library was in a room that is now part of the English class work, opposite Col- lection Hall. Frank Getz, the gardener, and Johnny Honan, the engineer, were here when I came, and are still here. Mr. Durnall has run the farm for many years, though he came after Frank- lin Hall, who was here when I arrived. Billy Mullen and Johnny Hayman were faithful souls that have passed away, as the tablets on the wall of the lower hall will tell us. George Highbarger has been working year in and year out in the same little shop. He came a few years after I did. Bridget, I believe, is still with us. She was here long before my time, possibly a survival of the Pleistocene. BRIDGET And so it goes. I was asked to write a short history of Swarthmore; I am afraid it has turned out to be a history of my own reminiscences, and mainly trifling incidents at that. It is curious how trifling incidents bulk so large in one ' s memory, but then a man ' s life is a web of trifling incidents, and history is the sum of the lives and activities of many men through succeeding generations. From the point of view of one man, this sketch, then, might be regarded as a small part of college history. Spencer Trotter. MISS LUKENS Page Eighteen

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THE HALCYON OF NINETEEN SEVENTEEN Within Parrish the Old Timers are fast disappearing, but a few still persist. Among them IS Isaac T. Hopper. Not many colleges can boast so stunning an ancestor. In- deed, a distinguished visitor was once heard to remark that our good Friend ' s picture was worth to an institution at least a Physics building plus a whole Faculty to administer physic. Then why, friend Isaac, hast thou abandoned thy old haunts, to hide out- side behind the door of Col- lection Hall? It must have been either to express thy dis- approval of the stage effects sometimes seen within, or to aid Student Government in chaperoning the alcovisies. Or, perhaps, the Depart- ment of History is punishing thee for bearing upon thy face an expression alien to peace — something approach- ing belligerency. Familiar to all S ' arth- moreans is another Old Timer, the famous Collec- tion Room Clock. For de- cades it gazed solemnly upon the assembled students, meas- uring out to them their full quarter with a precision worthy of the Department of Mathematics. But approach- ing age rendered its voice weak in comparison with the tones of the Majors in Pub- lic Speaking. So it fled to the Superintendent ' s office, where it now looks down benignly upon the world of affairs and follows practical courses in Economics. sm THE IVIES OF PARRISH Before leaving Parrish, let us drop a tear to the memory of a defunct Old Timer — the College Pump. In the olden days, when the Department of Chemistry was less sumptuously housed and the Department of Biology too busy to pursue Hygiene strenu- ously, the Pump vied with the Central Alcoves as a place of rendezvous. There groups could often be seen, plying one another with draughts of cold, sparkling, delicious, germy HiO. Now we take our drinks hygienic, warm, and inside. Requiescas in pace. Old Pump! Not a splinter of thine architecture remains; not all the science in the Depart- ment of Engineering could resurrect thy haadle; thou art longer but a moist and bibulous memory. Page Tz :enty