Towson University - Tower Echoes Yearbook (Towson, MD)

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4 THE TOWER LIGHT various phases of agriculture from trains manned by experts from the University of Maryland. It was hard to leave these fascinating scenes, but hunger pre- vailed, and soon various groups were seen lunching in the Coffee House, or tea garden, or on the shaded benches at the left of the Hall of Transportation. Soon after, the crowd hurried over to the Grand Stand. This was facing the Court of Honor and the Hall, and' was divided from them by a special road or track over which the pageant was to move. Promptly at 2:15 P. M. a flutter passed over the sea of color under the awnings of the Grand Stand. The band was coming! That was followed by the fioat America, bearing the B. and O. Glee Club, a male chorus of forty voices. Now, a voice rang out from the amplifiers, announcing event after event of the romantic pageant showing the progress of transportaiton. First came the American Indian, with pack horses and travois of crossed poles. Surely, there was not a heart which failed to beat faster when these Piegan and Blood Indians of the Blackfeet nation galloped by in full war paint and feathers. And not the least fas- cinating was the little Indian girl in orange who trudged so patiently by her mother-the big squaw in pink who waved the anachonistic palm leaf fan. River exploration and travel was shown by fioats bearing a canoe with Father Marquette, a river bateau, and a canal boat of the type once used on the Chesapeake and Ohio canal. The romance of road travel was vividly presented by the early road wagon, the post chaise, the post rider, the Conestoga wagon, and the George Washington coach, lent by Mr. Henry Ford, from which Henry Clay bowed graciously as he rode along. Next came the scenes portraying events from which modern rail transportation has grown, the meeting of the citizens of Balti- more and the historic parade held in this city a century ago to cele- brate the laying of the First Stone of the B. and O. In this the crafts of carpenters and blacksmiths were represented, and Charles Carroll of Carrollton rode side by side with Philip E. Thomas, first President of the B. and O. The work of Army Engineers in 'surveying the wilderness was shown by a fioat, and then the first efforts to improve travel by such crude devices as the treadmill car and the sail car. Then followed a long line of models of famous engines. Some of these had al- ready been shown in the Hall of Transportation, but in the pageant, the models actually moved along on the circular track, each under its own steam. Tom Thumb received a large measure of applause, likewise, the two early passenger coaches from which hoop-skirted

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Fl 2 filnttnzr Tight VOL. I OCTOBER, 1927 No. 1 Fair of the lron Horse T mid-morning on Friday, October 9, the staid and sleepy sta- tion of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad presented an un- wonted appearance of gaiety and color. A throng of students from the Maryland State Normal School had wrought this trans- formation. The crowd, orderly, but conveying a sense of joy and ebullition of spirits, climbed aboard the special train, and slowly the ten cars, bearing 850 students, Faculty and Elementary School chil- dren, moved out of the station. A brief trip, and everybody poured out of the train and was swept into the hurrying press and current of other crowds, all seek- ing The Fair of the Iron Horse. Beyond' the gate, the crowd divided somewhat and broke into smaller groups, each intent on some special item of interest. The Traffic Building drew some, the Allied Services others, but most sought at once to join the queue proceeding around the interior of the Transportation Building. The latter showed in much detail the evo-lution of transportation on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad between 1830 and 1927. Be- ginning with a scene in Baltimore in 1830, the exhibit proceeded, showing landscapes from Baltimore to Chicago, delineating the gen- eral character of the terrain, and giving a specially graphic model of Harper's Ferry. The development of bridges, signal systems, road- bed, and time service were all shown, but the most striking contrasts were shown in the engine models from Peter Cooper's Tom Thumb to the latest Canadian oil burning engine and the crack British engine King George V. Both the last named were outside the building on the special tracks, where enormous engines puffed idly like sleeping monsters. Here one went through a model of the oldest Pullman sleeping cars with its big woodboxes and stoves at each end of the car, and for contrast also passed through the latest type of de luxe trains for land cruises. Here, too, was a special train and lecture car for teaching 3 Ll lQE3Q:2iEitiiSfJ

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THE TOWER LIGHT 5 and beparasoled ladies dismounted with the aid of igallants, holding a parrot cage in one hand while steadying ladder or lady with the other. Time and space fail to give medium for describing each engine in detail. For such particulars, one may consult the catalog of the Centenary Exhibit. Let it suffice to say that one of the greatest trib- utes paid by the spectators to the romance of travel and' to the courage of our forebears, was the silence and the hint of tears, as the Cones- toga wagons passed by, with youth and maiden, gay and dauntless, facing ever towards the West. M. L. O. 'Q--15 Qf The Creative in Composition By EUNICE K. CRABTREE OMPOSITION is self expression through language fwritten or spokenj. This definition suggests the unity of the two fac- tors which must always be considered in the study of com- position. These are: self-expression and language. Self-expression implies the thoughts and ideas of an individual which seek expres- sion, and the realization of which is the ultimate aim of composition, lauguage implies the technique which makes the expression of the self possible, and it is the means to the end. The word through in the definition indicates the interrelation of these factors. Previously, the teaching of composition in the schools has for the most part neglected the former and placed the stress almo-st entirely upon the latter-technique. Recently, with the growth of the creative move- ment in education, the teaching of composition is being changed and a truer realization of self-expression through language is being ef- fected. Psychological Basis In discussing the creative, one naturally turns to the authori- ties-the psychologists, for information. Dewey says: The ex- pressive impulse of the children, the art instinct, grows out of the communicating and constructive instincts. Make construction ade- quate, make it full, free and flexible, give it a social motive, some- thing to tellg and you have a work of art. Robinson places it as a universal habit system. He says that it is characteristic of the vast majority of normal people to desire to build Qwhether out of stone,