University of Virginia - Corks and Curls Yearbook (Charlottesville, VA)

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a , THE STAFF OF THE FIRST CORKS AND CURLSe-ISSS I. Dyer, J. B. Dunn, Jr., C. L. Minor, W. DeColes, A. Latady, R. R. Rogers R. S. Cockrell, Bus. Mgr.; Robt. Massie, A. H. Byrd, J. H. C. Bagby, Editor; H. Barry, A. L. Bondurant Geo. G. Battle, J. H. Hobson The Genesis of Corkstand Curls By DR. JOHN HAMPDEN CHAMBERLAYNE BAGBY Professor of Physics and Astronomy, Hampden-Sidney College; First Editor-inaChief of CORKS AND CURLS ORKS AND CURLS was started in the beginning of a period of change that, acting with gathering speed in several directions, has resulted in an institution , hardly to be recognized by its alumni of the early '80,s. Young men who had served in the Confederate Army, boys born before or during the War Between the States and reared in the strongly conservative decade that followed, had come and gone; to be succeeded by students who, born after the war and growing to manhood in the first years of slow but sure recovery, were not so bound by tradition and were ready, if not eager, to inaugurate new things and' new ways of doing old things. As the bitter feelings, en- gendered by the war grew weaker, and as intercourse, flnancial and social, became more frequent, the college men of the South came to know the students of the colleges of the North and to learn of the unfamiliar habits and customs of these bigger, if not better, ina stitutions. Young people, possibly because they are closer to that remote ancestor tso Darwin might afhrmL hprobably arboreal, are markedly initiative; and so the students of the smaller colleges felt that they must adopt, to a greater or less degree, the habits, manners and customs of those in the larger, or adrnit, with burning cheeks, that they live thin the bushes of the college world. I51

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. .- .5-..v-;m.-. wa- .WW N-H4W; .. mu .. bu m V arradmumm mm Driven thus by an irksome sense of collegiate inferiority and determined to remedy deficiencies that were glaring and no longer defensible, the students of the University, in the short space of five years, from 1886 to 1890, took live steps toward the rising sun of mod ern education and so put their Alma Mater in a position, as they believed, to fear compari- son with no teaching institution, however large or wealthy. Taking these epoch-making events in their historic order inot, perhaps, the order in which a pedagogic expert would rank theml, they are as follows: First, in the year 1886 the first University yell was concocted by iiCharlie Parrish, whose name Fame will not willingly let die? Second, in the same year the University colors were chosen Ohe name of this benefactor cannot be supplied, unfortunatelyl. Raised by these two steps above his former status of silence and obscurity, the University man could now make himself known as such and was prea pared both to dazzle the eye and deafen the ear of every passerby. Third, the first Annual was published during the session 1887-1888. Fourth, the same year, 1888, saw the first football team take the field. Fifth, in 1890 the General Athletic Associa- tion was formed; this was a most welcome step in advance, as it created a few more of- ficers to be swapped in iiJeff. politics and so added to a supply always far below the demand. As corresponding secretary of Eta of Delta Kappa Epsilon, the writer received, from time to time, from various other chapters of the fraternity copies of their college,s An- nual with requests for exchange. As there was none to send in exchange, these requests caused him some embarrassment and from this, no doubt, he was led to wonder why there was no Annual and so to question whether one could not and ought not to be started. Casual conversation with various students soon showed that there was a sentiment that it would be well to have an Annual. After a time a small group was drawn together for a serious consideration of the matter. Two preliminary questions had at once to be faced: Who was to undertake the work and how were the costs of publication to be paid? It seemed clear that the initiative would have to be taken by those enough interested to volun- teer to do the preliminary work. As the members of this group had no money to throw . to the birds and did not care to face the risk of a deficit, possibly great, it was essential that the new publication should have some guarantee of support. Reliance upon volun- tary purchases of the book after publication seemed to the pioneers, with intimate knowl- edge of their fellow students, extra hazardous, and there was no organization of the stu- dent body as a whole. The two literary societies did not embrace all the students, they were loosely organized, and their finances were in bad order; it was not reasonable, then, to count upon their treasurers being able and willing to undertake the collection of another change. There remained support by the fourteen fraternities, or nothing doing? Accordingly, one man was selected from each fraternity and was asked to present this proposition to his chapter: That the fraternities. as a group undertake the publication of an Annual; that each fraternity elect an editor, and that each member pledge himself to buy one copy. In the end all of the fraternities agreed to the proposition, and the four-