University of California Berkeley - Blue and Gold Yearbook (Berkeley, CA)

Page 13 text:

THE BLUE AND GOLD EDITORIAL. V fjSALVETE, SALVETE, Students, Critics, Professors, Instructors and all who may chance to cast their eyes upon these pages. The Editors having well armed themselves with weapons of defence pistols, bowie-knives, clubs, muskets, etc., offer the eighth volume of the All ye who may see your names immortalized in these pages take it not to heart; it is merely the idle laugh and prattle of the jester. Appease your wrath and laugh with us or at us.- Ye stern critics with heart-piercing shafts, avert your darts; we have donned our coats of mail and are in- vulnerable. They will only strike vainly against our sides. And above all, ye fair Co-eds, let not your angry frowns darken us in future. We did not draw them; it was our heartless artists. The yearly publication of the BLUE AND GOLD has now become such an established custom that we think, or at least we hope, that there is no necessity for an apology or defence of our appearance. Almost every first-class college of the United States issues such a publication as ours. And what one is there who reads them can deny that he finds pleasure in observing in their pages the trials, the triumphs, the fun, the customs of the students ? It is in these books that he may see the peculiar traits, habits, dispositions of that queer species of mankind, the American College- Student. Who is there will say that these pages are worthless because they show alone the social and merrier side of the student ' s character? There are none such ; except perhaps those sour wretches who come to college with the sole intent of stuffing their intellects with lore ; ' who, when they see their names shining out among the first on the examination lists, already fancy that they are great men, born to perform great actions, and must look down from their eminence on the simple pleasures of the

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EDITORS, J. B. LINCOLN, CHIEF. J. J. DWYER. C. E. HAYES. A. P. NILES. W. D. ARMES BUSINESS MANAGERS, R. D. JACKSON, CHIEF. G. F. SCHORR. C. A. EDWARDS. O. W. JASPER. N. SEARLS. P. E. BOWLES.

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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA vulgar herd as vanity and vexation of spirit. They will regard the expenditure of money on a work which has for its aim no higher object than to lay before its readers a picture of college life, and to produce now and then a smile, as a foolish waste of capital. Had it been a treatise on the Immensurability of an Infinite Point, or The Differential Evolution of Modern Transcendentalism ah, that would have been worth while. Within the last few years many changes have taken place in our college life. There is a considerable difference in the aspect of affairs since the days when ' 79 were seniors and ' 81 were jolly sophomores. Nowadays there is no class spirit. Except, to be sure, such spirit as is shown in an occasional cane-rush between the Sophs and Freshies. In fact there is hardly any distinction between the upper and lower classmen. An in- significant Freshman will in these days talk as loudly as a Sophomore or as decidedly as a lofty Senior. Suppose a Freshman, three or four years ago, had dared in anyway to hold opinions contrary to those of his upper- classmen. Horrible Dictu ! he would have been shaved to the skull and afterwards ducked in a cold bath for his enormous conceit. But those days have passed away. The days of liberty, of free thought and action for the under-classmen have come. We do not mean to argue the point with those who hold that the sooner class feeling is done away with, the better ; the sooner the Freshman is looked upon as an equal of the Junior or Senior, the better. But we say, alas ! And our eyes are literally filled with tears when we behold the Freshman strutting up to the buildings, sporting a cane with the most audacious coolness and ea.se ; and our souls burst with grief when we see the once bold and festive Soph gaze on the spectacle in silent and helpless sorrow. But there is one change to which we can give our hearty approval. We mean the change for the better as regards morality. We think that there is scarcely any college in the United States which has among its students a higher moral tone than our own College has at present. We never hear in these times of those far-famed class busts which were at one time so frequent. Only once did a part of ' 84, more enterprising than the rest of their comrades, hold one of those receptions which take place around a warm fire and beneath the blue vault of heaven, when the drinka- bles flow freely and the students abandon themselves to joy unconfiiied. (And where the Profs, are hirking on the outskirts, armed with dark-