University of Notre Dame - Dome Yearbook (Notre Dame, IN)

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Students find recreation in Branson wreck , with its old football pic- tures and interhall trophies, its radio with a fine bass for music. At other times they are entertained by performances like this one by the Camel Caravan. All this for a bottle and it empty; it happened on Co- operation Night, but it looks like everything else but that. ing, nor is it entirely a fanatic devotion to the alma mater. It has been popularized as the Spirit of Notre Dame ; the public has mistakenly attached it to, and identified it with, the courage of Notre Dame football teams, or with the pride and exuberance of the Notre Dame students at football games. But these, perhaps, are merely the most out- ward manifestations of this spirit. It is doubtful if anyone who has not attended the University can be aware of more than these outward manifestations; students, however, are keenly aware of it, even though it is not definitely tangible to them. The majority of the three thousand boys who go to Notre Dame are of the broad American middle class; sons of physicians, contractors, farmers, lawyers, shippers, they arrive from high school or preparatory school unanimously impressed with the fame of Notre Dame. For a while they walk wide-eyed, but the early fascination soon wears off and they settle down academi- cally and socially, usually falling in with a group of boys with interests similar to their own. There are no fraternities, no cliques, no class distinctions; Notre Dame is a near- perfect social democracy. Under these con- ditions, finding acquaintances is not hard; the South meets the North, Texans befriend 18

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I on Brownson field, a revitalized band in practice, with interhall football teams scrimmaging against the backdrop of the field house. Autumn on the campus: the rush of students and fans to the stadium. Log Chapel by the Lake, has sprung outward and around the Lakes; from two or three humble buildings, a dozen teachers, a few dozen students, Notre Dame has burst into a Uni- versity of quadrangles, of hotel-like halls, of libraries, with a faculty numbering hundreds, and a student body in the thousands. This one-hundred-year progression was no mere matter-of-course enlargement, but a living achievement, a cumulative realization of the dreams of Sorin, who must have had some intimation, in his years of hardship and disappoint- ment, that his struggles would produce something great and enduring. And because Notre Dame was founded in strug- gle and hardship, it has endured and enlarged through the years,- Notre Dame is a strength, a guide, a repository of Catholic Faith and Learning to Catholic America. Though Notre Dame has grown much in one hundred years, though curricula have been widened and diversified enormously, though changes in educational methods have come about, the University still adheres strictly to the ideal of Catholic tradition and culture; Notre Dame men of today are schooled undeviatingly in these elements of Catholic edu- cation, just as preceding generations have been schooled. There are thousands of Notre Dame Alumni who are living proof that Our Lady ' s University is not just one university among thousands; there is something in them, an intangible something that was acquired at Notre Dame, and that can be found only at Notre Dame. This something marks a Notre Dame man from all other college men; it is not a man- ner of dressing, nor a manner of speak- {Omtauud an uxtp gtt From the back of the cam- pus to the front: the steady, living power of the power- house and the long sweep of grass, tree, and build- ing down the mall to the Rockne memorial.

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New Yorkers, Californions know Vermonters. With the stimulations and excitements accompanying the new environment, the freshmen at first do not mind the some- what rigorous program, but as the days go by they become wiser and gripe as much as experienced upperclassmen. The Indiana weather, the food, the schedule of classes, all have humbly shared torrents of sarcasm from the students. But they know, as they complain, that it ' s only an old Notre Dame custom . . . and the chronic gripers are usu- ally the first ones back at the Circle when the new semester begins. Freshmen, then, soon find the order of the day a little severe: rise at six, breakfast at seven, classes at eight, dinner at twelve, supper at six, lights out at ten ... a big change from lackadasical high-school days. But after a few months they become reconciled; they realize that their hours have been planned for them with economy. Some of them may even grudgingly admit that the program has done them good, and all of them, while home for vacation, brag about the rigorous life they lead, and all of them look forward to their upperclassman years. when the schedule is not so strict, and the privileges are greater. The golf course, tennis courts, the swimming pool and other facilities of the Rockne Memorial, the extensive interhall ath- letic program, all are outlets for the steam generated during hours of study. The afternoon touch football games on Badin Bog are as much a tradition at Notre Dame as historic Badin Hall itself; three or four games are often played simultaneously, and the air is full of footballs and grasping arms. Movies are shown on Saturday night at Washington Hall and, although scorned by a few who journey to town for their amusement, they attract large, raucous crowds. During the football season the Victory Dances follow the games, tradi- tional St. Mary ' s tea dances occupy Sunday after- noons, and the various class dances, for which name bands are engaged, are eagerly awaited. It does not take long for freshmen to ac- quire all the marks of Notre Dame men, or to adjust themselves to Notre Dame ' s unique atmosphere of masculine informality. The freshmen are assimilated {Co tn tJ m next page Clean Plaif Students . . . learning the troths in Father Leo R. Ward ' s doss, reading the bulle- tin board in the Main building, waiting in long lines for laundry that won ' t be in. 19