Washington and Lee University - Calyx Yearbook (Lexington, VA)

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History of the Class of 1901. A REETINGS, gentle reader! The Class of lyoi makes mTZ you its best bow and bespeaks for itself in advance AILA that same tactful courtesy and kind consideration that n vou have hitherto sh(.) vn its j)redecessors. And this boon we. its members, ask, not from a desire to blind vour eves to the few faults we may possess or from a sense of our own unworthiness, for we are fully aware of our own superior qualities, — in fact we have often been told so, — but because we feel it but the just due of a class so distinguished in its day in every department of college life. We ask that you will not judge us through the faulty spectacles of the old maid (the average Lexington old maid is competent to find faults in any thing on earth except herself and her pet cat) ; nor yet through the admiring eyes of the thirteen-year-old prep at the Ann Smith, who looks up to us as so many heroes whose example he is to imitate to the best of his slender ability ; but with the true, unbiased judgment of that par- ticular portion of the fair sex known as calico, who, though they may sometimes eat a fellow ' s Lowney ' s before his face and then poke a little innocent fun at him behind his back, have none the less a warm spot in their hearts for the college man and are his truest judges. And now having complied with our request, as we hope, bear with us a little as we attempt to remind you of some phases of our past career. Our first coming together as a class was on that ever memor- able fifteenth of September. 1897, when headed by the Board, the Facultv, and a brass band, we marched to the chapel to witness the inauguration of our president, William L. Wilson. As for the first time we gave the Long Yell, a newly awakened feeling of the dignity of our position stole gratefully down our spinal columns and imparted an erectness to our bearing and a proudness to the carriage of our heads that would have been the envy of the awkward squad then parading on a certain neighboring hill. As we listened to the speakers, we felt that the mantle of all the departed heroes 25

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Officers. E. Randolph Preston President. W. Carroll Moore, Vice-President. Thomas A. Bledsoe, Secretory and Treasurer. William G. McDoweli Historian. Class Roll. M Page Andrews, A. T. A . . . Shepherdstown, West Virginia. Edwin P. Bledsoe, i;. N Lexington, Virginia. Thomas A. Bledsok, 1). X Lexington, Virginia. VoLNEY M. Brown, Campbelltown, Texas. Ernest F Deacon, Flumen, Virginia. Frank L. Downey, Bunker Hill, West Virginia. William J. Elgin, i) K. 3., Leesburg, Virginia. PtOBERT Glasgow, Jr., ! r. A , Lexington, Viro-inia. .Iame.s F. Lawson, Lynchburg, Virginia. John W. Lee, Lexington, V irginia. William G. M(■Do yKLL, Lexington, Virginia. Charles C. McNeil, A. T A., Staunton, Mrginia. W. Carroll Moore, Lexington, Virginia. E. DuLANEY )TT, Hitrrisonburg, Virginia. E. Randolph Preston, i K. t., Lexington, Virginia. James M. Seig Meadow Dale, Virginia. J. W. S. Tucker, Lowesville, Virginia. William B. Wade Brownsburg, Virginia. Charles H Young, Chiistiansburg, Kentuckv. William C. Young, Christiansburg, Kentucky. 24

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of Washington and Lee had fallen on onr yonthful shoulders ; and after hearing the glowing words of our new president, we hegan to realize that from our ranks were to come the men who were to make the South again renowned for her learning and states- manship. Ah ! it was a repetition of the old feeling we had experi- enced when first told I)y our ambitious parents that some day we might become president of the United States. Taken all in all, it was a glorious first experience for us, and we may venture to say that no Freshman Class ever entered upon college life under more auspicious circumstances than the Class of lyoi. All too soon, however, we had to awake from our pleasant dreams to the stern realities of a student ' s life. Our minds were obliged to turn from the pleasing prospect of what we were going to do to the immediate necessity of finding out how to get things down Patsy, how to dodge those keen gray eyes that could tell at a glance just how much of the Alath lesson one knew, how to grub successfully for (ireek roots, and tiie skillful use and abuse of our mother tongue — knotty problems to be sure, severely testing- one ' s natural abilities and religious principles, but on their solution depended the success of our whole college career. Day after day, week after week, went by and we were gradually initiated into all the mysteries of college life (only one or two, how- ever, into those of the . . 1 ' . 1 ' .). The societies, literary and otherwise, received their full (juota: athletics occupied much of our time and attention and a fair share of our spare change ; we were shown the workings of college politics in the course of a hotly contested elec- tion for final ball president ; we were kindly invited out to tea with the professors without their knowledge and consent. We learned by experience many another valuable lesson, but it was after all onlv the ordinary lot of the Freshman. . nd then to crown the whole came the Christmas exams. It was certainly a time of intense excitement. Every face wore a deep expression of concern as the owner thereof would inquire : Who has a ' jack ' to Cicero? or, Can you give me the address of Hinds Nol)le? Yon youth who traverses the campus with listless step and vacant eve, his lips moving automatically, is he a lunatic, a lover, or a ])oet, or has he looked on the wine when it was red? 26