Wellesley College - Legenda Yearbook (Wellesley, MA)

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SECRETARY ' S BULLETIN. . ? Semester ,. -W MiSi.- - .j£ ' t?i £ -66£4 ' - ... .. k kx-sby.nstifieA 1hit she his obtaJTjeif merely pswg griie m t « .2zr,... . a a Q. . 6n.nU.-ry. Credit System When ' 98 came to college, She was so possessed of knowledge That the Faculty could teach her nothing new. We ' ll devise a scheme of credit, All that see shall come to dread it, For we ' ll guard its hidden meaning till we die. Not the grave and reverend Senior, With the cap and gown demeanor, Shall beyond the veil of credit dare to pry. Thus this system full of mystery, Worthy of the sphinx of history, Came upon us like a cloud burst from the sky. Its effects we now are feeling ; With a gracious smile concealing Fears and tremors fit to make a martyr sigh. So they sat down in despair, And they wildly tore their hair In their effort to consider what to do. Said the Council Academic, In a spirit quite polemic, We must give these brilliant maidens something more. ' • ' Now the standa rd we will raise In quite complicated ways, We will give their cramped ambition room to soar.

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food. In this, their noble work, the lamps were aided by the more flickering and fickle gas, and thus College Hill was supplied with the light adequate to its needs. All went smoothly until the Class of ' 98 appeared upon the Hill, her face beaming with intelligence and enthusiasm. Her brilliancy, at first so dazzling that it blinded the eyes of the college world to her true worth, at length did great service in revealing direful deficiencies in college life, which had never before been discovered. 1 The corridors began to seem very dark, except where some transient streak of light revealed the fact that a ' 98 was passing. The dimness of the chapel became so very dim that it was difficult to see the hymn-books, except upon the Freshman side. And to speak of the time when ' 98 was secluded in class- meeting, what words can depict the deplorable gloom of the groping college world ? Yet this was but the darkness before the dawn — of the electric lights. The blessing of electricity to Wellesley, who can estimate? One can see 1 Remarkable feat of imagination. its gladdening influence even in the alcoves of the library, where sight of any kind has before been impossible. Through electricity the charming walks of Wellesley have become as safe as a city thoroughfare, and through the same genial light the catacombs have at last become suitable for living beings. To electricity also we owe the present classic style of hair. All hail to electricity ! All hail to Ninety-Eight ! The reader is earn- estly requested to write for himself a conclu- sion to this ' essay, the electric light of the author ' s mind havin suddenly(?) gone out. 1

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GENERAL BULLETIN. Barn Swallows TN the dewy mornings of the early spring days of May and June, many a girl can be seen clutching her skirts in one hand, and The Land Birds of New England in the other, while she gazes at the chickadees and the blue jays pouring forth their song in the tree tops. This kind of orni- thology revives spasmodically every spring, but the interest in it is as nothing compared to that in the kind of ornithology which can be studied without opera glasses, or even without The Land Birds of New England. There are two types of birds which can be studied in this way, societas and non-societas. Of these two, the first class shows throughout its different genera : the Shake- speareana, Phi Sigma, Zeta Alpha, Tau Zeta Epsilona, Agora and Classicana, a decided conformity to type. The distinguishing mark of each animal is a small and peculiar forma- — - r - r =lr tion usually found on the ventral side of the — = animal to the left of the central axis, though in some it may occur as far down as the diaphragm. No matter where the mark occurs, it is never absent, and never fails to indicate that the bird is of the type societas. The class non-societas is much larger and displays among its individuals more marked differences. It has not been, as yet, accurately divided into genera; but one genus has been definitely determined upon — that of studiosa. It has always been thought that these animals had, in common, their kind of food. They are neither herbiverous nor carniverous, but live for the most part upon a fiendish concoction of sweets. Celebrated biologists, and even many undergraduates, have devoted much time and thought to the interesting question of the con- nection between these two types. What most puzzled them was, that by assiduous effort the type non-societas sometimes succeeded in developing one of the peculiar formations, and passed over into the type societas. Within the last six months, a new variety of bird, brought from Smith and Radcliffe, has been introduced at Wellesley. This bird, it is hoped, will prove the miss- ing link between the types societas and non-societas. The scientific name of this new species of bird is Welles- leyanae consilium bonis temporibus, studentae comraun- imis ; the common name is the Barn Swallows. These birds, beside the fudge-eating propen- sity, have much of the snakelike power of charming, though in this case they charm each other. A large number will sit for hours watching the antics of a few of the flock, who fly, jump, twitter, and cackle together, making a confused medley of Cranford, Dickens, Wonderland, Harvard.