Worcester Polytechnic Institute - Peddler Yearbook (Worcester, MA)

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26 ton invented the art of thought. Dr. Conant’s favorite trick was to assume a balancing position perched on the arm of one of the class-room chairs, and with his hands clasped tenderly around one knee attempt to bluff us into be¬ lieving that he didn’t understand a blackboard demonstration, with his inno¬ cent Well,—now,—let—me—see, just how is that?” I must now touch upon a tender chord,—it is Rhetoric and Composition. It has ever been a sad subject with us, and sorrowfully do I mention it now. It brings up memories of gallons of ink and reams of essay paper utilized in agonized attempts to construct a tale of a Humorous Incident.” It conjures up phantoms of gigantic bluffs, and recalls Kinney’s celebrated progressive arrangements of the largest words in the dictionary in essay form. We shall never forget the quiz-ahs ”—but we are glad they exist with us now only as memories of the past. Across the corridor from the quizah torture chamber we read several in¬ teresting French dreams, under the direction of Professor Coombs; Le Pacte de Famine and Le Pecheur D’Islande,—which latter someone translated The Sinner of the Island ”—being thoroughly chewed (about) and digested by us. The remaining subjects which we enjoyed during this springtime of our existence were Free-hand Drawing, Elementary Mechanics, and Ethics and Hygiene. The latter was the most enjoyable, because we never had any. Elementary Mechanics used to amuse us muchly, especially Joseph’s efforts to explain that second per second per second business, while the beautiful little experiments” and earth-weighing acts, introduced on the side by Doc, did much toward keeping us from falling into a somnambulistic state. Of our initiation into the mysterious and gas-tly rights of Free-hand Drawing, much might be written. We were the last class to come under the direction of Professor Gladwin, and we did him proud.” We drew on the blackboards, on paper, and on the models, the latter not being appreciated by our instructor. We investigated the laws of gravitation with respect to the fall of pipe fittings, old valves and scrap iron through space, and pinched the vanishing point in the act of vanishing. Much of the remainder of our time was spent in shop, sleep, and socia¬ bles at some of the Worcester churches. Early in the term we organized as a class, electing the following officers : President, C. W. Kinney ; Vice- President, F. W. Putnam ; Secretary, A. C. Vinal; Treasurer, A. A. Kent.

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2 $ climbed the hill, entered chapel, and were mustered into active technical ser¬ vice as the Class of Eighteen Ninety-Nine, on the afternoon of September 16th, 1895. jfreebman U?ear. After being carefully dissected into four divisions, our young efforts were turned toward the pleasing pastime of finding the localities known as Free-hand Drawing-Room, Mechanical Labs.,” “Mathematical Parlor, Salisbury Labs.,” or Cell Eighteen, Boynton Hall.” Alas! we know where all of them are now,—not slightly, but too well. We next turned our attention to the time-honored custom of grinding,— we wanted to get a good reputation with the faculty, and, incidentally, we then thought that these old and valuable school customs must and should be preserved. During the first two or three months we received our introduc¬ tion to the various mysterious things which may be found, in a frame, in the first part of the catalogue under the title, Freshman Year, First Term.” Under the fatherly direction of Danny, we entered the realms of Chem¬ istry, and soon learned how to turn litmus paper red, white and blue, how to poison people by feeding them arsenic disguised as wall-paper, or find out if our stomach contained phosphorous by boiling it in a wash tub; and it is safe to say we got more enjoyment out of those chemistry lectures than from any other subject of our first term. Can any of us forget the roar of laughter that shook the room when Dan tenderly pulled the featherless carcass of a pigeon from the preserving charcoal dust and observed, thoughtfully, It’s a bird ”. As a side issue, in the chemical laboratory we bent glass tubing into all sorts of fantastic shapes, made all sorts of gases and acids, testing the latter on our note books, or desk, or clothes, or anything else of value which happened to be around when the stuff got spilled, and we can certify that the beauty of our concoctions and the deep yellow color of their odors have never been surpassed by those of any other class. In the mathematical line we tackled college algebra with Dr. Conant, and juggled with all sorts of progressions, permutations, combinations, in- determinates, and equations, whose roots extended all over the lot. Here we learned the circumstances under which Archimedes first made the dis¬ covery that water is wet, how Pythagoras juggled Geometry, and why New-

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V We also drew up a Constitution and By-Laws, which we have religiously violated ever since. Orange and black were chosen as class colors, and the yell, Hobble, gobble, razzle, dazzle, Hika, hika, heck; Ninety-Nine is right in line, Worcester Poly tech, was adopted. The class manifested much interest in various events, several men entering the cross-countries, which we won easily, and we even went so far as to talk of a class foot-ball team. As the term neared an end we began to look toward the exams, and shook in our shoes as the eventful days drew nearer and nearer. At last the ordeals arrived and then passed, and while a few of us missed connections, most of us bobbed up serenely for the second round,—we had finished the first lap of our course. But one sad event occurred to mar the term for us, that being the acci¬ dental death of our friend and class-mate, William D. Baker. Billy,” as he was familiarly known, was one of the prominent and popular men of the class, and his death throws the one dark shadow on the otherwise pleasant memories of our Tech life. After our first experience with semi-annuals we breathed freer. Good skating soon eased our minds, so sorely tried by the exams. Again we were ready to get down to work; ready to strive on with Trig, and to puzzle out Invent. Then we tried to jabber Dutch, but no ! Zelotes objects to that, so we must say Deutsch, for There is sometimes method in his madness.” Our officers for this half were : H. E. Scott, President; A. F. Husse} r , Vice-President; E. E. Rich, Secretary; S. T. Willis, Treasurer. At times we wandered up into the Free Drawing Room, at least enough of us to remove all drawing boards from the rack. There Gladdy taught us how to draw a tree, and gave us instructions as to our sketch books. Warm weather arrived, down into the park we went to sketch the beautiful objects to be seen there. Of course we never made any acquaintances while out sketching, but at times a little coaxing was necessary to get a suitable subject. Put took the Liberty to get some very good sketches of Clark University