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

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shrieks of the whistle as they navigated the machine to the campus where they forced the unwieldy and unwilling monster to waltz and roll in ragtime until the small hours of the morning. Who has forgotten the time when they tied a cow to the desk of the Professor of English, or projected an angry cat through a convenient opening in the wall on to the bald head of the Professor of French. Some of the old graduates will tell how they, as sophomores, fortified the roof of the Gymnasium, stocked it with food and water, raised the flag of their class and successfully repelled all attempts of students and University authorities to dislodge them for a period of two days, and finally capitulated only after the President had agreed that they could descend with all honors and without fear of penalties. The Old Graduate will tell you tales of similar import by the hour, as illustrating the college spirit of his day. These are tales of primitive man, when each man ' s hand was against his fellow, trying to circumvent him and get the better of him. It was like life on the Scottish border or in Xew England in the days of the Pilgrim fathers, when forays and raids were planned by the contending clans, or when each house was a stockade and one walked to church with a musket. It was the primitive stage of college evolu- tion. It was the boy freed from the strict supervision of the school, full of activity, energy and exuberance, for the first time treated like a man and not knowing how a man should act. At the same time there existed the Class spirit, and loyalty to the Class demanded that all other classes should be treated as enemies. All these factors led to narrowness of outlook. The University spirit did not exist. It was Class spirit. Gradually as time went on, the classes grew larger and became too unwieldy to act as units. The develop- ment of the town went on simultaneously. The students were dissolved in the mass of townspeople,

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College Spirit, Old and New Edmond O ' Neill Yhen the Old Graduate returns to his Alma Mater after the lapse of years, or when one meets him at some festive occasion, one almost invariably hears the remark. College spirit is not what it used to be, and then follows the narration of some incident or adventure wherein he describes how he singly, or in company with other classmen, played a prank on some staid citizen, or transgressed a University regulation, or outwitted the Faculty. Get a group of old fellows together and one would judge from the conversation that their college life was mainly a life of strife. If they were not hazing a too- pretentious freshman, ignorant of college law, they were engaged in a class rush. On nights when they were not bus}- in unhooking the clapper of the college bell they were removing the gates from the residences of the towns- people. Certain great achievements are talked of to this day. as when some spirits of a particularly original and venturesome state of mind would rim the old dummy engine down to Temescal. or. firing up a steam roller left in the streets by some unwary contractor, would startle the citizens by unearthly 13

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and. like nitroglycerine dissolved in alcohol, became non-explosive. The only fixed custom of the old days that survived was the Class rush. With the advent of President Wheeler came the preaching of a new gospel the Universitv instead of the Class, the government of the students by themselves instead of by the Faculty, the bringing home to them of the fact that they were men and not boys, that the responsibilities of a community of men were invested in them and that their difficulties and problems must be solved in a man ' s manner. The history of how this transition was accomplished will be told by Professor Setchell. It is the story of the development of the indi- vidual, from adolescence to manhood the story of the development of a nation from primitive conditions to civilization, it is the story of evolution. College spirit in the broad sense is little different now from what it was in early days. The difference is in the manner of manifestation. Formerly it was individualistic, now it is collective. The whole Universitv now roots for the College team. The class contests are good-natured events, without any significance. The spirit is pride in the Nation, not boastfulness for the village. The old college spirit was individualistic, the self-aggrandizement of the one : the new college spirit is self-effacement, loyalty to an ideal. The old college spirit has had its uses, but it has had its day. The new college spirit ust beginning. Its future cannot be foretold. College spirit is the soul of the University. It may make for good or for evil. We who have watched development firmly believe it is for good.