Washington and Jefferson College - Pandora Yearbook (Washington, PA)

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. . V 3,9 M !t! .. 3 had A K P A as mf A IVIVIIVIII 'grim-ku 4 B 4 1 . atl f 11, 1 t .vIf1'5lQ1QlQff.. his wife, upon approaching an interesting domestic event, had sent him for the doctor, he 111et a C1'O1ly and, engaging with hi111 in a game of chess, wholly forgot his errandg and that, told by her to go to the grocery for solne ham, he ordered sent home a barrel of hams. Like Kant, rain or shine, Vose always carried under his arln a big baggy green umbrella, but unlike Kant, who is said to have taken his constitutionals every afternoon at so regular a time that tl1c German housewives set their clocks when they saw him passing, Vose was apt to be always before or behind time. - On leaving his position here, Professor Vose was for a while e11- gaged in work on the United States Coast Survey. His further move- ments are not known. For a time it was rumored that he had been burned to death in a hotel fire, some said in Toledo, others in Milwau- kee, still others in Chicago, but the rumor was soon discredited. The rest is silencef' On DCCCIIIIJCP 23, 1873, Colonel NV. H. G. Adney was elected LeMoy11e Professor of Agriculture and Correlative Branches. He resigned this position in June, 1880. Professor Adney came to VVashington, I believe, from New Athens, Ohio. In the Civil War he had bee11 Lieutenant-Colonel in the regi- ment of which Rutherford B. Hayes, afterwards President of the United States, was colonel. He was very tall, long-limbed, and angular, with rugged features, and a stern cast of countenance. He carried into the class room something of the manner he had acquired in the army, but I think he sometimes found it harder to manage a class than a regi- ment. Occasionally he resorted to heroic measures. One feat that he performed was almost Homeric. Some students had locked from the outside the door of his class room, and were playing high jinks in the corridor. How he did it was a marvel, but Adney sprang through the transom and came down plump into the midst of the boys, who scattered right and left. He caught one of tl1e1n, but, naturally, it was one who had had nothing to do with the disturbance. Mrs. Adney, the professor's wil'e, is remembered as a woman some- what active in good worksg at the time of the grasshopper pest in Kansas, she arranged a concert for the benefit ot' the sufferers. His son, 32

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, fQf Q W ' 'M' 'A wig- 8' I aiivi . May 22, 1885, he died suddenly and without lingering disease. He is buried in Homewood Cemetery, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: a spot which l1e himself had chosen. . George B. Vose was elected Professor of Mathematics and Me- chanics at Washington, August 1, 1865, and served the college until 1873. Vose was, I believe, by birth a German. He was a profound 1natl1e- matician, and could lvacli a student who was a mathematical sharkg but he could 11ot enter into the ditticulties of any one who was not. Unable to master his subject myself, I used to recall for my comfort Tranio's advice to Lucentio: 5 The mathematics- Fall to them as your stomach serves youg No profit grows where is no pleasure ta'en. In brief, sir, study what you most affect. I would not, of course, give that advice to a student now. The college class rooms never witness to-day such scenes as were common in Vose's room, when everything that would make a noise. Jew's-harps, torpedoes, parlor match heads, and even firecrackers, was called into service to enliven study and relieve the tedium of the hour. The old Berseker rage of his Teutonic ancestors would sometimes flame up in the soul of the victimized professor, and he would jump from his platform and pounce upon one of his tormentors, or perhaps seize upon some entirely unotfending man and order him from the I'0Olll. But he never let the sun go down on his wrathg and even when he had cited a 111an before the faculty, he would, as I can testify from my own ex- perience, so soften his charge that the culprit would almost appear to be the one who had been abused. I wonder if absentmindedness is a trait of great mathematicians? We hear of Sir Isaac Newton shaving at his usual place at the wall of his room, unaware that the mirror he used had been removedg taking his Wifeis fingeriinstead of his own to press down the tobacco in his pipe, and cutting a hole in the bottom of the kitchen door to let a kitten pass in and out after he had already cut one big enough for the house- hold cat. I do not vouch for these storiesg nor do I for similar ones that used to he told of our old professor. It was said that once, when 31 '

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U11 2 .12 f V fyifyf., 2,4117 I i, 4 V, V, ,. A ' ,A.. ..,A ,,,. ,,.. .., 2 4 , 1 'Q . 5 f . 9 ., 7 .EW .,,.... n ,,..,, , ,... 1 , .,., Wu W I ,A .pity 2 , ,f-,. , , 5 2 ,, . ,V .,-' :VIH-:nw H -V9 Y V, ,, .-,v f ,,,H,vf? ! f A , 3' A , - , 2 ' g Ill 1 W, I Edwin Tappan Adncy, became an artist, a lecturer, and a writer on various subjects, and achieved some note in all his eiforts. From Washington, Professor Adncy went to North Carolina, where he became a farmer and stock raiser. There he was gored to death by an infuriated bull. These slight jottings cover the period from 1869 to 1873. Besides those members of the faculty of whom mention has here been made, two, both now professors I'lI'll'l'l'fllS, Professor James S. Simonton and the Reverend Dr. Henry Woods, the first of whom taught us French and German and the other Latin, are still residents in Washington, and I forbear to speak of them. They were faithful teachers, and were and are good men and true, and are and ever will be beloved by those they taught. As I have, in these notes, told a good deal, perhaps too much, of student mischievousness, I may say in closing that at lhe present lime, according to my observation and in my sincere belief, a better and more serious spirit prevails throughout the whole student body. This may be due, in part, to the work required of the men in the gymnasium, and to the large place given to athletic sports, both operating to reduce the excess of animal spirits which was formerly spent upon the poor pro- fessors, but it is also due, in part, indeed I am inclined to believe in greater part, to the enlarged view which the students now take of the dignity, the duty. and the privileges which are theirs. . v f,-' ,f :-4' as .'. , .fl r. Pgqvfsffzvasfittz E'?4l5kttRQNZ,':4S 9-Z' c.0S9QsN f 'i3'i0.b I-'A .JL PV qi , Q M3457 zu -. I-31 Q.. nnx' ll 33