University of Wisconsin Madison - Badger Yearbook (Madison, WI)

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wave abated, service pipes leading from the water mains to residence halls had irozen. Ordinarily the only things to do would be to wail until spring when they thawed out. How- ever, Professor Wood of the physics department, and D. C. Jackson, professor of electrical engineering, contrived to thaw out the pipes by running an electrical current through them from the mains which had not frozen. It worked perfectly, heating the pipes in halt a minute. TTie success was talked ot throughout the nation. Beginning o£ Education and Engineering, finished by 1900. Students will be students! Drinking, gambling, and hazing still went on despite attempts to alxjlish them. The exuberance of the students probably reached a high point in 1899. Not since the hazing episode in Chamberlin ' s time did student con- duct get so much newspaper publicity. It began in January of that year when University students mobbed the Opera House where the Deshon du Fries Ojiera Cx)mpany was playing Fici Diai ' olo. The students had announced beforehaml that they intended to stop the show. During the course ot the [lerform- ance the actors were disturbed when miscellaneous objects were thrown on the stage. Some of the boys had brought beer bottles, and beer was seen being passed around. Some of the students used language of such nature that ladies were seen leaving with flushed cheeks. five boys were arrested and put on trial, but Adams saw to it that they were suspended on- ly temporarily, if at all. This was not the last embarrassment of the year. In 1898 students had organized a night- shirt parade for Hallow- e ' en. In 1899 they re- peated it. Some 400 stu- dents garbed in pjs and night-shirts began alx)ut 9 p.m. to parade the streets of Madison. They were to parade for a while, and then sere- nade Ladies ' Hall and the sororities. Unfortunately, at Ladies ' Hall the parade got out of hand. Some of the paraders broke into the laundry room, looted its washday contents (it was Monday night) and even got into the students ' rooms and took Fredrick Jackson Turner articles of clothing. Over 200 pieces of clothing were taken and the ladies resolved to have no social relations with the men of the Unixersity until the faculty of men had dealt with the offenders and all articles had been returned. President Adams dealt quite sternly with the boys at first, but those who were suspended were back in school after Christmas. Toward the end of Adams administration his health failed, anti the sujiervision of the University was placed in the hands of Edward A. Birge. dean of the College of Letters and Science. It was during this interim that Ag Hall was completed. This building was unrivaled throughout the country at the time ot its completion. President Charles R. Van Hise took office in the autumn ot 1S03. He was the first alumnus of the University to be placed in the presidency. Since his gratluation he had always iKen associated with the University and had become a prominent geologist in his own right. On the 50th anniversary of the University ' s first commencement in June, 1904, Van Hise was formally installed. Wisconsin had proved itself a pioneer and a leader in assuming not only the responsibility of the Uni- versity but also in making its knowledge a service to mankind. This. The Wisconsin Idea, was seen in the efforts to awaken the scientific practice of agriculture. During this new era under Van Hise the Idea was nourished by the progressive social legislation which was drafted in University seminars and directed by such men as John R. Commons and Richard T. Ely. At the same time service to the state was being rendered by the development of the University Extension. The period of most rapid construction development was the five years between 1908 and 1913; however, the acceleration in the physical plant and the growth of the student body was stopped by World War I. The last major building in the College of Letters and Science. Sterling Hall, was built during this period. -J . g. Hall, considered in lyOO finest building of its kind. The student body grew to love and respect Van Hise; how- ever, he did not start out his administration in their good graces. In commenting to the student body on a coming Jubilee he said in effect that it might be well to revive some of the biblical customs of Jubilee year: debts and even examinations might be cancelled! Unfortunately Van Hise left town the next day as there was no one who could state definitely that this com- ment was not to be taken seriously, the student body in growing numbers accepted this idea of no examinations as a defmitt 23

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time he changed the date of an extension lecture so as to permit the lecturer, who was a member of the football team, to play in an all-important game. If the parents of a promising athlete objected to his playing, Adams was always irresistible in his letters, and the parents had to give in. Under his administration, in 1893, a faculty committee was created to arrange with the fraternities to limit the number of their affairs. A few years later the faculty moved to require all student houses, social organizations, sororities, fraternities, and residents of Ladies ' Hall to adopt social regulations. The regulations of the faculty required the student organizations to assume some control of student affairs. This plus the work of the first dean of women. Miss Annie C. Emery (Ph.D., Bryn Mavvr), led to the establishment of the Women ' s Self-Govern- ment Association. I Drafting Room in Science Hall — 1893. The year 1897 saw the birth of this new force on the Wis- consin campus, the Self Government Association (SGA) fore- runner of the present WSGA. It was the year before men from the University would be among those who helped the United States win the Spanish-American War and annex the Philippine Islands, the year in which men were pushing northward and the year of the Alaskan gold rush. Annie Crosby Emery began to investigate the possibilities of a self-governing agency for the 327 women at the University that year, two months after the regents had appointed her the first Dean of Women at Wisconsin. Members of the Women ' s League, an organization with optional membership whose primary purpose was to bring University women together on grounds of social equalitv and understanding, called a mass meeting, at Dean Emery ' s insti- gation, on October 26, 1897, to discuss the feasibility of pur- suing her ideal of self-government for the University ' s women. No faculty members were present at this meeting or at the one held a few days later to draft the constitution of one of the first women ' s governing bodies in an American university. Tlie initial purpose of SGA was to improve social relations between men and women on the campus and to handle matters of -Student life which were outside faculty jurisdiction. Through- out its 50-year history, this purpose has remained fundamentally the same. The regents smiled with favor upon the new organization, for they thought it would be beneficial for University women. Testing cows for T.B. — 1899. Eor almost half a century X ' arsity has held a warm place in the hearts of generations of Wisconsin graduates. Wherever they are, they never hear Salvuum Fac (the old Latin hymn composed by Gounod from which the University hymn has lieen adapted) without a deep sense of nostalgia for their lost youth: for icy winter mornings tramping up the hill to 8 o ' clock classes, for warm spring noons loafing on the grassy knolls, and for starlit evenings drifting over moonlit Lake Mendota. It was in 1898 that a voung instructor at the University, Henry Dyke Sleeper, who taught music and voice in the fledgling music school, arranged the music, composed suitable words, and .irranged for publication that year in a new song book that hymn of praise, that invocation and battle slogan, known then as Varsity Toast, now simply as Varsity. In February, 1899, a cold wave hit Wisconsin. The tempera- ture dropped below zero and stayed there. Before the cold Fuller Opera House — on the Square. 22

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' M Mk -Ja ' ' ■ SBt- 1 ' ' WllkS0m %e£t - 1 USH m The Lake Rush, abolished in 1909. University plan. Van Hise, completely amazed that his joke had not got across was compelled on his return to set the students straight by informing them that his statement had been intended as humor. For the rest of the semester, It ' s a joke was a campus by-word. The practice of hazing still continued on the campus. Sopho- mores often kidnapped groups of freshmen, herded them in trucks and locked them in outlying barns. The freshmen soon learned to blacken their faces in order to distinguish friend from foe. Hazing was finally abolished at a meeting of the student body on October 19, 1909. Interference with freshmen going to University exercises or student organizations was for- bidden; no student was to be put into the lake. Upperclassmen, particularly W men, members of Iron Cross, junior and senior oflicers, and the student conference committee, were charged with the special duty of preventing hazing. In line with this, the bag rush replaced the lake rush. Ten canvas sacks five feet high filled with straw were set up on opposite sides of the lower campus. Freshmen and sophomores lined up on either side of the playing field, tried to capture the A few years later saw the birth of one of the great Uni- versity songs in the parlor of a Chicago boarding house. Had anyone peered through that parlor door on a frosty Sunday morning in September, 1909, he might have been more than a little amazed at the strange antics of the pair within. Purdy was the musician of the pair, a graduate of Hamilton College where he had played the college organ and had led the glee club. Beck, knowing nothing about music, illustrated his ideas with gestures and wild lunges better suited to the gridiron than the parlor. Before the end of that fall day the two had dreamed up the simple, catchy tune, the stirring battle cry that has been identi- fied for more than a generation with the State University of Wisconsin — On Wisconsin. The idol of this vig- orous young era was none other than Van Hise, who now has be- come an almost legend- ary figure in the history of the University. Once, when the local police had arrested 50 students ( all the local jail would hold) for rioting, the unjailed students pelted the jail front with beer bottles. Van Hise rode his horse down State Street to Dad Morgan ' s pool parlor and borrowed enough cash to bail out the rioters. A period of rapid construction was the five years between 1908 and 1913. The growth and attendance continued until America entered World War I — the war to end all wars. The war brought about a slowing down of University activity, as both personnel and students were drained by either the service or the federal government. With the end of the war came the end of a greater chapter in the history of the Uni- versity, which can most easily be summarized by Van Hise ' s statement, I shall never rest content until the beneficent influ- ences of the University are made available to every home in the state. The rejoicings that followed the Armistice were stilled on campus by the unexpected death of beloved Van Hise. Charles R. Van Hise, beloved by all. The Bag Rush replaced the Lake Rush. enemy sacks, and tore off each other ' s clothing. Another cus- tom was peanut rolling, designed to rub freshman noses in the dust. John R. Commons, and labor legislation. 24