Virginia Commonwealth University - Cobblestone Wigwam Yearbook (Richmond, VA)

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Prologue To have been a part of a college in the days of its youth is indeed a gratifying and a novel experience. For in this age when so many educational institutions are measured to a large degree in terms of history and tradition, it is nice to know that perhaps we have been instru- mental in the forming of the tradition of RPI. We who have attended the Richmond Professional Institute have learned, among other things, that the thirst for knowledge can be quenched as satisfactorily in a makeshift classroom as it can in a colossal lecture hall. We have discovered that the quest for an education need not meander around a spacious campus beside ivy-covered walls nor along sorority lane and fraternity row. We have, in fact, discovered that the physical tools are secondary. We have found that the student must first of all have the desire. From the desire comes willingness, and from that is sure to come the mental compatibility of student and instructor. Those are the things that count. And those things we have found at RPI. As we take our leave from this institute of learning, it is encouraging to see new buildings taking shape, new mortar being mixed, and plumb lines being stretched. It gives us a prelude glance into the future of the school. And we believe that we can see RPI fifty years hence; larger, more widely known and recognized, and still growing — still meeting the need of the hour. Of course we shall remember it as the RPI we knew, with Monroe Park for our campus and classes meeting beneath its trees in May. We shall remember the long yellow fingers of the April sun reaching between the leaves of a magnolia tree and stroking a co-ed ' s hair as she sat studying beside the Administration building. We shall remember spring and the

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gardens in Richmond. We shall remember the old Southern homes standing as they did in the days of the Confederacy, dignified, stately and rich in southern lore. We ' ll remember the evenings when we hurried from dorm to dorm, from building to building when the air was filled with needles, when the stars hung so low over Shafer Street that you thought you might have hit one with a stone, and the muffled growl of Franklin Street traffic creeping through the first snow. We ' ll remember Byrd Park on autumn after- noons with the swans circling slowly and the smell of burning leaves in the air. These things we shall remember along with the history, the literature, the music, the art, the science, and humor. It has been an opportunity. And though we may not have always made the most of that opportunity, we leave RPI with the profound belief that ours has been a richer life for coming. We go our ways believing that we are better equipped to face the complexities of life. We believe that we have accjuired .some knowledge of the techniques of living. And for all those things we say, thanks RPI.