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HomeMy WebLinkAboutA&M article-2rr4 along the route of the new OLYMPIAN As long as daylight X . lasts, often later, trav ~~F7` elers on the new Olym- pian linger raptur- ously over the scenic grandeur that graces the electrified trail of this "Queen of the Rails"-656 sootless, cinderless, mountain miles through the very heart of the romantic Northwest Wonderland. And on the by-ways are Yellowstone Park through new Gallatin Gateway, the In- land Empire lakelands (Spokane), Mt. Rainier National Park, Olympic Penin- sula, Puget Sound, Mt. Baker, cruises from Seattle and Tacoma to Victoria, Vancouver and Alaska. All easily acces- gible and offering thrills or restful recreation as you prefer. All-expense tours, escorted groups or inde- pendent travel, at moderate cost. Low summer fares. Ask us to help you plan your trip. Mail coupon below today. ')he MILWAUKEE Electrified over the Rockies to the Sea DOA D Geo. B. Haynes, Passenger Traffic Manager The Milwaukee Road, 738 Union Station, Chicago, III. Send me full information about tours to ❑ Yellow- stone Park; ❑ Inland Empire (Spokane and Lake Region); ❑ Mt. Rainier National Park; ❑ Puget Sound Country; ❑ Olympic Peninsula; ❑ Alaska; ❑ Black Hills. 0 Escorted all-expense tours. I have days vacation and about to spend. started off in an uncertain manner, hoping against hope that they, would not sink in the first half mile at least. It was not long before Al. I. T. went under the waves, and the Wisconsin coxswain, upon discovering this, said: "Holy smoke! M. I. T. has just sunk. Let the stroke down." The beat was let down to twenty-eight per minute. In a short while another crew sank. "Let the stroke down-another crew has sunk. I think it's Syracuse," the 'coxswain shouted. The stroke went down to twenty- six. One of the members of the crew suggested that they had better take it easy and figura- tively sink the others and then pass them- his idea being that if all the others sank, they could win the race. Then California went down, so the boys dropped the stroke to twenty-four a minute in order to insure their own security. They were rowing about this pace when they passed the bridge about ten lengths be- hind the Navy. In the meantime, Cornell, which had been up among the leaders, got into difficulties with the water and began to lose ground. Soon the Wisconsin crew dis- covered this and raised the beat so that they were just passing Cornell as the latter sank. Texas A. ante M. offices for the Texas Agricultural Experiment Station. Being the home and the headquar- ters for the oldest and largest Extension Serv- ice in the world, on the campus of A. and M. there is an edifice dedicated to this work. Until recent years there has been no definite plan of building on the campus and as a re- sult the buildings offer a bewildering array of architectural styles, ranging from the distinct- ly Turkish appearance of the Armory to the near-Spanish villa type of the Assembly Hall. All the newer buildings, however, are of white brick, and as College Station is located in the midst of the cotton plantations far from in- dustry, no smoke ever mars the whiteness of its sky-line. Several years ago, a zoo at Waco found two baby lions with the rickets and decided that the best thing to do would be to ship them to the college in order that the students of veterinary medicine might experiment upon them. The students did and the lions recovered. With the nucleus of two lions, a zoo, containing bears, buffalo, coons, deer, monkeys, native alligators from the swamps of the Brazos near the college and all other animals that are considered standard zoo equipment, is the mecca of many afternoon strolls. Also College Station boasts of one of the oldest broadcasting stations in the world. When radio was still in the laboratory stage, from the college station WTAW a football game was broadcast by the dot and dash sys- tem-the first athletic contest ever sent over the ether. The real story of the Texas Agricultural and Mechanical College cannot be written without frequent references to the past, for the school has been built and has thrived upon its traditions. The khaki uniform of the army is worn today instead of the cadet blue and the campaign hats of a half century ago, but in spirit the school remains the same. A cross section of the college life of 1929 would not differ materially from the same glimpse of the school in 1899 or in 1909. Side by side with the boys of '29 march the men who have gone before. Once an A. and M. man, the saying goes, always an A. and M. man, and in some mysterious manner no man who has ever gone through the institution is ever for- gotten. His name becomes one of the tra- ditions of the school. In the early days of the college, a baseball player earned for himself the name of "Whis- key" Smith. Ever since that time, the Smith College 1 tumor "One more," shouted the coxswain. "Now Iefs catch the others." The water had smoothed out a little by this time, so they felt that they could raise the stroke with a reasonable amount of safety. The trouble, however, was that the other crews had no intention of sinking and the best that the Wisconsin crew could do was to gain a few lengths on the Navy which was having a great battle with the Pennsylvania crew for third place. It was a great race in spite of the fact that it was a disappointment to most of the crews participating. Undoubtedly some of the crews which sank would have finished one, two, three, if they had had better luck. This year it is hoped that the water will be better and that all the crews will have a fair chance. It would not be right to leave this episode without some mention of the Columbia crew. It had an outside lane, and how they ever finished, let alone win the race, is beyond the ken of this writer. The only plausible an- swer lies in the oarsmanship of the men and the very capable coaching of Richard Glen- don, Jr. They performed a feat that should truly rank them among the great crews in American rowing history. 4from page 51} v;ho happens to make the baseball team in- herits the title of Whiskey. W. C. T. U. mamas write letters of protest against such a fiendish custom, but today as in the years gone by there is a Whiskey Smith on the baseball team. A name, too, may be inherited from broth- er by brother, or from father to son. If in '82 a man earned for himself the name of "Mule," twenty, thirty or forty years later, when his son or grandson enters the college, the boy may play the violin and write son- nets but he is known by no other name than Mule. In 1887, the first of eight brothers, because of his well lined pockets, was called "Dough." The eighth Dough of that family graduated from the college in 1923. The hazing of freshmen is another of the time honored customs of the college. Pastors from their pulpits have raged against the bar- barism of it, irate parents have, written letters to the papers and wrathful legislators have threatened to cut the college off without a penny if hazing isn't curbed. A boy enters the freshman class expecting to be strapped, beaten, deprived of his "cush" at mealtimes. Now and then a student leave's school because he fannot stand hazing, and then, as the college must stay on the good side of the Legislature, there is an up- heaval. A Legislative committee calls, and there is an investigation. Prexv is worried. (Believe it or not, they do refer to him as Prexy.) Freshmen are quizzed individually and collectively. In one voice they declare that hazing does not exist at A. and M., that it never has existed and that the whole idea is absurd. The Legislative committee knows when it is whipped. It issues dire warnings and passes another law-but what more can it do? It can find no evidence. Freshmen who are too bruised to sit down vow that it is merely a fall from a cavalry horse. When the committee departs, Prexy loses his worried look. Sophomores breathe freely again-and proceed to lambast hell out of the freshmen for lying to the honorable body of Legislators. The army discipline and the uniform of the college are supposed to make it a democratic school. Boys can and do work their ways through the college, often at the thirty cents an hour which is standard wage on the cam- pus whether it be paid for washing a car, weeding a flower bed or minding a profes- sor's baby. The height of ingetmity was June, 1930 reached by an energetic freshman from Bas- trop County, Texas, who arrived at the school the fall of 1926 with eight cows. Renting a pasture near the college, he peddled milk as a competitor of the college dairy. Fraternities are forbidden at A. and M. and yet the fraternity problem has been one of the greatest which ever threatened the institution. Following the war, secret societies known as fraternities, although they bore the original names of Swastikas and True Texans, were organized among the students. Rigid codes of ethics and conduct, aimed primarily at the non-frat man, were adopted. For several years, the internal war in the student body threatened destruction of what has been known as the Aggie Spirit. As is some- what unusual in most cases of that kind, both sides were bitterly and equally rabid against the other. The fight flourished in class poli- tics, in school publications and in social af- fairs where a fraternity man would not dance with a girl brought by a non-frat man, or vice versa. Eventually it crept into athletics. Football games were lost because the frater- nity men and the non-frats refused to do team work. Fighting, each to show the other at a disadvantage, the team forfeited game after game. Then an incoming president of the college delivered a masterful blow. During the school session, civil war would have resulted had the faculty intervened either way. But prior to the opening of the college year, when they were scattered all over the Southwest, the ring-leaders of the secret societies received notices that the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas had planned and expected to get through the coming year without their respective presences. Student organizations, except for scholastic or athletic reasons, are practically unknown at A. and M. There is no glee club. There is no press club of embryo writers, nor any literary gatherings. Dramatics are confined to one event each year-the senior play. Boys from various counties of the state bind themselves together for the sole purpose of being grouped together as a county club in the college annual, The Longhorn. There are similar state organizations, such as the Louis- iana Club or the Arkansas Club. The Cos- mopolitan Club comprises the foreign stu- dents-from Mexico, China, Brazil, Russia, Egypt and India. Its membership is usually around two hundred. Except for one military-social club which will be discussed later, organizations play no part in the student life. The college, however offers facilities for almost every form of athletic contest. Several years ago a golf links was added to the college equipment. Polo is a favorite sport, as is tennis. And, although it never headlines, the chess team has made records for a number of years. The Texas A. and M. College is strictly a man's school. That is written in the charter, but now and then there have been girls who crashed its gates. I was one who did. But hack in the eighties, two girls, the Hut- son twins, who were also daughters of a col- lege professor, took their degrees in civil en- gineering. That was tradition enough. My father had given years in exhaustive research for the Experiment Station and the Extension of the college. We lived in a dinky little house on the campus, which had basked for several years in the reflected spotlight because little Madge Phillpots bad spent the first years of her life in it. Madge, by the way, out in Hollywood makes flickers for William Fos, and the name of Phillpots has been changed to Bellamv. There was no good rea- son, except the fact that the stork had erred, for my not going through my father's alma mater. For three years, I was one of the cadet corps of the A. and M. College. The accepted popularity of one girl with so many men played as little a part in my real college career as the gin-swigging, the secret morality quiz- zes and the necking tournaments play in the lives of the students of a co-ed institution. Within a few months the novelty of the situ- ation wore off. I didn't have to "grab my ankles" at the approach of an upper Glassman, but I got "rammed" for not attending classes. I fought for the honor of being on the dis- tinguished student list. It seemed very im- portant then, but today I don't remember whether I ever made it or not. Actually my sex made little difference. I was allowed to omit prescribed courses in "bull ticks" (military science) and at the sug- gestion of the registrar I refrained from in- cluding in my course of study such subjects as genetics and biology, because my presence in the classroom during discussions would prove embarrassing to the prof and to the students. Men's colleges are funny that way. I was permitted, however, to pray with the rest of the boys at final pep meeting before a big game, and I learned to sob aloud and as loud as any of my classmates-in the tra- ditional manner-when our football team went down in defeat. Militarism has always been stressed at A. and M. The record of the college during the World War bears this statement out. When war was declared in '17, six weeks before commencement, the senior class was gradu- ated into the army and many of the juniors followed them. During the period the United States was in the war, forty-nine per cent of all the graduates of the Texas A. and M. Col- lege since '79 were marching under the colors. Its service flag, which is said to be the largest service flag in the world, was recently pre- sented to the Texas Legislature for goodness knows what reason, over the protests of a number of rival schools in the state. Of every student, unless he has had army training before entering school, is required two years of military training. Dropping military at the end of the sophomore year is optional, but that, as many bovs protest, is just when it gets bearable. The junior year brings chevrons and quarterly compensation from the government-which is not without its attractions. Infantry, artillery, cavalry, signal corps and aviation are the branches of the service represented. All are supplemented by army training camps in the summer, and in the aviation service, a student must spend six months in the flying service at Kelly Field following graduation. After a boy finishes his junior year, he is less inclined than ever to drop military. Towards the latter clays of August, be scans the newspapers anxiously for the announce- ments of the senior officers for the coming year: lieutenants, first and shave-tails, cap- tains, majors and one colonel of the Cadet Corps. A boy can stand the blows of his freshman year, the grind of the sophomore days when he is neither up nor down in the scholastic stage, the monotony of the junior year when effort seems futile, for the priv- ilege of being a senior officer. The greatest tribute to a man's militarv ability, his scholarship, his character and those attributes which are supposed to make a man is given to the boy who is made Col- onel of the Cadet Corps. He wears three diamonds on his collar, marches ahead of all men into the Mess Hall. He intercedes for the students with the faculty. He represents the student body on all occasions. He, with the president, greets the visiting governors. He does the honors of the college. The colonelship, however, W the acid test of a man. In the history of the college there are records that live long after everything else that has happened has been forgotten, of the men who could not stand the taste of success. Wherever the Old Boys get together it is recalled that a certain man committed the unpardonable sin of letting a commission go to his head, or of bootlicking the faculty and becoming its catspaw against the student body, or-most unpardonable-changing his allegiances and his friends and his party after 115 PARKS Announces A COLLEGE MEN'S FLYING COURSE JUNE 15 to SEPT.] Will You Be One of the 150?- If you want the thrill that piloting a plane alone can bring-if you want to go back to school improved in hoI and mind, and with a foundation for real earning capacity in aviation, send now for full details. Parks Air College was one of the fvst to be licensed by the 17. S. Dept. of Commerce as a fully accredited transport school. PARKS AIR COLLEGE Division of Detroit Aircraft Corporation 691Missouri Theatre Building ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI COUPON « « Perks Air College 693 Missouri Theatre Bldg. St. Louis, Mo. Send me,without obligation,full details of your College Men's Flying Course. 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