West Virginia University - Monticola Yearbook (Morgantown, WV)

Page 32 text:

classes that have gone out. Your visit has made me feel young again, Joe, I ' m mighty glad you hunted me up. Joe looked at his watch and found with surprise that it was one o ' clock. Hours had slipped away while they were talking, without their l nowing it. He said good night and good bye and went to his hotel feeling that a fellow ' s college days bear a richer fruitage of memories as the j ' ears bear them further away. By Monongahela ' s waters. Where the hills rise rank on rank. West Virginia ' s seat of learning Crowns the river ' s shelving bank. '

Page 31 text:

■class together with their address and occupation. There was also in con- nection with this an interesting chapter on the Alumni, written by Prof. Armstrong, Secretary of the Alumni Association; and the issue of ' 99 con- tained a similar chapter. Joe read these closely, for. like every loyal Alumnus, he felt an interest in every other son of his Alma Mater. I see, ' said he, after they had looked through both volumes carefully, and had refilled their pipes from Bill ' s ample box of Yale Mixture, that up to this time three hundred and three graduates have gone out from the academic schools of the University, and two hundred and sixty-one from the law school. The number is not very large, to be sure, but that fellow, writing in the last Monticola, is about right when he says that an equal number of graduates from Harvard or Yale will not show a larger list of men who are making their mark in the world. They ai ' e scattered all over the country — lawyers, doctors, preachers, teachers, engineers; and two others of them have broken into congress, Bill, like yourself; I tell you I am proud of the oldW. V.U. I have my sheepskin framed and hanging in my room at home. I would part with all the rest of the furniture in the house sooner than I would part with it. Yes, ' said Bill, I have been keeping track of the graduates of the University as closely as I could and I know something about a good many of them; most of them are making a success of life. I have been particularly interested in noting the success that the engineering boys are meeting with. I was informed by the head of that department when I visited Mor- gantown about a year ago that every man who had taken an engineering degree was at that time holding a good position. They stand right along with the graduates of the large technical schools too. A good many changes have taken place since you and I were there, Joe. Of course the institution has grown and has kept pretty well up with the general progress along educational lines; but particularly within the last three years have numerous innovations been made. In the old days when you and I were there, co-education was not thought of; but you know the co-eds broke in about thirteen years ago, and in ' 97 they were admitted to the Preparatory department. And now it seems they are having everything about their own way. An art school and a music school have been established, and even a cooking school was started at the beginning of this year. I hope for the benefit of the boys there now, that the cooks at the forts will take advantage of the training in this department. I never shall forget the beef-steak we used to try to masticate there. But I have a warm place in my heart for the old school, Joe, in spite of the fact that everything is dif- ferent from what it was when we were there. I wish that the officers of the Alumni Association would do something to get the interest of the old boys stirred up so that regular meetings of the association could be held. I would like to attend them and get in touch with the members of all the 25

Page 33 text:

A few of the University ' s Distinguished Alumni. Hon. James F. Brown, Honorable Janies Frederick Brown, to whom this Monticola is dedica- ted, was born in Kanawha County, Virginia, in 1852. He is the oldest son of Judge James H. Brown, now one of the few persons living who partici- pated actively in the important events during the formation of the new state. Judge Brown was a zealous Whig prior to the war and was a mem- ber of the tirst Supreme Court of Appeals of the State of West Virginia. Mr. James F. Brown is a Graduate of the West Virginia University of the class of 1873, and among the alumni who have particularly distinguished themselves in their chosen tields of labor he is one of whom the institution may justly be proud. After completing his work at the University, he entered the law office of his father, with whom he subsequently formed a partnership in the prac- tice of law, having been admitted to the Bar in 1875. Upon the retirement of his father, the senior member of the firm, from active practice, he became the head of the law firm of Brown, Jackson Knight. Those familiar with the titles to real property in the southern portion of the state know of the chaotic conditions which have prevailed there in the past. Nothing has so retarded the development of that end of the state as the unceasing litigations of conflicting claimants to those lands. What was practically a wilderness in many of the counties south of the Kanawha river twenty-five years ago is now the scene of wonderful activity in the production of lumber, coal and coke, for which that region is so justly celebrated, and probably no lawyer now living has had so much to do as Mr. Brown, with the adjudication and settlement of these claims, thus, bringing into market this vast and valuable projaerty. In 1882, in the