University of Pittsburgh - Owl Yearbook (Pittsburgh, PA)

Page 23 text:

The evenings on the University campus were as varied as the students themselves. Those who could play bridge picked up a foursome and passed the evening discussing Gerber and Blackwood. Some dragged their troubles down to Gustine’s, in the hope of forgetting their problems momentarily in the pleasant and convivial atmosphere. Others checked the University calendar of events, and twisting couples in the ballroom found themselves being eagerly watched by a small Indian boy tightly holding his mother’s hand. For others, the pressure of classes and assignments weighed too heavily for them to waste an evening. These conscientious students spent their evenings with their books, trying to understand the method of balancing ionic equations and memorizing French verbs. For them, it was an enjoyable evening.

Page 25 text:

For many of the students, their educational progress was often lonely. It was long hours bent over a desk in the poorly-lit Commons Room and lonely trudges through the deepening snow to Carnegie Library for a book that the Pitt library had not taken the trouble to purchase. It was silent evenings spent alone in a room with the snow drifting deep and feathery on the windowsill, trying to read two hundred and fifty pages before the exam that was scheduled for eight the next morning. It was trying to find a quiet spot for some precious last-minute search for additional information with which to pad a paper. It was becoming lost in a textbook, trying to assimilate in a single night fifteen weeks of knowledge. It was often a lonely world.