Worcester Polytechnic Institute - Peddler Yearbook (Worcester, MA)

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SENIORS

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CLASS HISTORY 1953 George Raymond Polen, Class Historian In the year 1849, a large group of adventure- seekers gathered together their belongings and embarked upon a search for enormous wealth. The determinatian and courage of these pioneers fills many pages in the annals of history. In September, 1949, a century later, a smaller group of adventurers initiated a similar move¬ ment in search of an equally valuable objective. Gathering together in Alden Memorial for the first time, ive became officially known as the Class of 1953. We, also, have a history. Our course was not an easy one. As fresh¬ men we became aware of the fact that the so- called Sophomore class refused to recognize our claims to the title of “Tech men.” Later on we were to learn that the faculty would present an even more formidable challenge to this claim. We concentrated on the immediate objective, however, winning the rope pull and the football game in the Goat’s Head competi¬ tion. When the Goat’s Head itself was being escorted around the campus there were many impromptu and rather informal contests as to which class should take the responsibility for its possession. These informal activities were undertaken with even more vigor than the formal Goat’s Head rivalry. They usually ended good- naturedly, however, with several members of both classes deciding to go over to Institute Pond for a swim. It was not long before we became quite familiar with that peculiar specie of the animal kingdom known as “the college professor.” It was amazing. They seemed quite harmless and almost human. After the first period of ex¬ aminations this initial impression was modified somewhat. Several of our number found the going quite rough and were obligated to heed the immortal ad¬ vice of the esteemed Dr. Masius: “Run over to the Bursar’s Office and see if you can get your tuition back.” It was he, however, who taught us when to “square and add” and when to “inte¬ grate.” He also in¬ formed us of the paramount objec¬ tive of a college education, which is , “to enable the stu¬ dent to become pro¬ ficient in the evalu¬ ation of infinitesimal sums.” We saw our Tech football team win three straight and then drop three in a row to post a .500 season average. One of the victories was a juicy 7-6 upset over a highly rated University of Massachusetts eleven. Several of our men of ’53 saw frequent action throughout the season. We cheered our basketball team on to an equally successful performance, coming up with a favor¬ able showing in the won-lost department. When Tech Carnival time rolled around, our dramatics experts put their heads together and came up with a prize-winning program. It was simple. All we did was to portray a few scenes from our ordinary life here at Tech. We had never realized before just how hilarious it actual¬ ly was. A large percentage of our class partici¬ pated in the fraternity rushing system and almost four-fifths of our number were subsequently pledged to the nine fraternities on campus. Toward the end of our freshman year, we were given the opportunity to select the course in which we would specialize during the following years. As it happened all of our members signed up for some type of engineering. This was sig¬ nificant and rather fortunate in view of the fact that no other major types of courses are offered by the Institute. In our sophomore year we returned with new spirit and enthusiasm. Under the ler.dership of President Cluverius we planted both feet firmly on the deck and looked ahead. We cheerfully accepted the responsibility of indoctrinating the new Freshman class in the traditions of the Institute. We also impressed upon them the necessity for showing proper respect to the upper classes, especially the Sophomore class. They were somewhat uncooperative at first, and we were forced lo instruct them the “hard way.” Dave, John Dave, Dave