s.
The faculty of that day can be recalled without difficulty: President
Hopkins, whose clear and venerable name no eulogy of mine shall here
disfigure; his stern-faced but great-hearted brother Albert; Emmons
the geologist; Griffin, Tatlock, Lincoln, and Chadbourne, who
succeeded Hopkins in the presidency; Bascom, the only survivor to-day,
and Perry, the best-known of them all. I have taken no pains to
refresh my memory of the faculty of 1856, but I am confident that here
are no omissions. It will be somewhat less easy for undergraduates
to-day, writing so many eventful years after their entrance, to recall
the names of their teachers. One only of our memorable nine is now in
service, and long may he serve the community! All these were ranked as
professors; there had been tutors and instructors before our days, but
none in our time.
The _Gul_ of those days was a four-page sheet containing in briefest
form the membership and official lists of the various fraternities and
associations; it sold for ten cents a copy. The only other college
publication was the _Quarterly_, a solid magazine of about one hundred
pages. None of the fraternities then existing, I think, possessed a
chapter-house; their rooms were in more or less obscure quarters, over
stores or in private houses. There was quite as much rivalry between
them then as now, and poorer spirit. There was also an Anti-Secret
Confederation, of which General Garfield in his time was the leader;
it mixed freely in college politics and was no less clannish than the
other fraternities. The absence of chapter-houses and the less fully
developed social life of the fraternities left room for a stronger
class feeling and perhaps a more sympathetic college spirit than
exists to-day. The smallness of the classes and the absence of the
electives, too, aided the cultivation of class feeling; the classes
ranged from forty-five to sixty, and the whole class was held solidly
together during the whole course, all reciting in the same room three
times a day from the beginning of freshman year to the end of senior.
College singing was hearty and spirited, but our repertoire was
limited. I recall many evenings of blameless hilarity on the benches
under the trees in front of East College. For more ambitious musical
performance we had our "Mendelssohn Society," whose concerts were not
probably so classical as we then esteemed them, but whose rehearsals
gave us not a little pleasure. A
|