ALUMNI REVIEW Published by the Williams College Alumni Athletic Association TALCOTT MINER BANKS, Editor and Manager Issued in February, April, July, October and December of Each Year Annual Subscription $1.00; Single Copies 2 0 Cents Bntered a, "condclas, master February 23, 1909 «< the poet office at Williamstown, Alaee., under the act of March 3 i879. All correspondence should be addressed lo the Editor, 61 Main St., Williams town. VOL- 5 OCTOBER, 1913 NO. 4 Williams College opened on September ment of the Pattison will case brings to seventeenth with a total enrolment of 493 Williams income-bearing real estate val­ students, which is 19 less than that of 1912, ued at about $150,000, and the $100,000 and 42 below that of 1911. The new offered by the General Education Board ■ students number 137, the smallest entering 'will be available when the College has class since 1905, but they are a likely- raised $500,000 and has paid its debts. looking lot of boys, and 60 per cent of So much for the beginning. The hard them came without entrance conditions, work comes next, and those who have the which is a cause for congratulation. endowment campaign in charge are pre­ While the College, with its present paring for a thorough canvass of the equipment, can handle a larger body of alumni and friends of Williams. To as­ undergraduates than is now within its sist in the effort, the College has engaged walls, there are advantages connected the services of Mr. Francis B. Sayre of with limited numbers which Williams the class of 1909, one of the most widely men have ever been free to recognize. known of our younger alumni, as Assist­ A college of five hundred men is about ant to the President. Mr. Sayre will right, according to the views of a good bring to his task abundant energy and many. enthusiasm, and in his visits to the vari­ ous associations of Williams alumni in behalf of the endowment cause he should The Endowment Fund has scored a meet with a hearty reception. Such notable advance since Commencement, undertakings as that upon which the the sum of $100,000 having been contrib­ governing forces of Williams are embark­ uted by a friend of the College. This, ed often gather momentum as they grow, with the gifts of $16,000 made in June, and the progress of our “snowball” will brings the total of “cash and good be our “big interest” in this academic pledges” up to $366,000. The. settle­ year. 2 The Williams Alumni Review At the recent inauguration of a presi­ as a distinct shock to many worthy people. dent in one of our Eastern colleges, the That our Williams Library needs more students gave a performance of “Much books is a fact that should not call for re­ peating, and, as Mr. Brown well says, no Ado About Nothing.” This may have fairly expressed their one should .be deterred from giving them sentiments, but was it quite polite of by the apparent lack of room in our present quarters. Such gifts, as that of them to rub it in? the historical collection of Professor ■ Gross of the class of 1878, or that gener­ The editor of the Williams Record is on ous money legacy of John Savary of the the right track when he calls on the under­ class of 1855, to buy books for the Library, graduates to do their part toward keep­ are alike welcome. They bring nearer ing down the cost of living at Williams. the vision of a new and adequate library We understand that he proposes to follow building on our campus, befitting a col­ up his suggestion later by a detailed in­ lege where the things of the mind are vestigation of the conditions involved; ever of foremost concern to those who if so, he will render a distinguished ser­ vice not only to Williams but to colleges serve her best. in general. Just how much of a boy’s college allowance goes for education and Williams College now has all the “pam- how much for a good time is what thous­ philia” (to quote one of our ancient ands of American parents would be glad, worthies) of a regular fire-department. to know. If our undergraduates, of their A visit to the little old brick building own accord, come to a realizing sense of back of the Gymnasium will reveal an the unnecessary elaborateness of modern orderly and complete assortment of fire student life in our Eastern colleges, so apparatus—chemical engine, hose-cart, net, collapsible buckets, hats and coats much the better. for the firemen. What is more, the boys know how to use it all, and have their One of our subscribers is very desirous organization well under way. There of obtaining a copy of the Alumni Review is an undergraduate fire-chief, there are for July, 1910, in order to complete his captains, lieutenants and sublieutenants, . file of the magazine. Any one who cares and every College building has its special to dispose of a copy of the issue named guardians assigned. The brigade will can obtain a liberal price for it by com­ be able to help, too, in town fires, and municating with the Editor of the A lum ni you may trust its members, whatever Review. the hour of day or night, to jump when the whistle blows. Mr. Brown’s letter regarding the libra­ ry question at Williams contains some The metamorphosis of the long-familiar valuable constructive suggestions. The idea that a college library—or any other “Congo” church building, which is now library for that matter must have in progress, will do much to change the books in it to make it worth while is not aspect of our main thoroughfare, and will a new one, but it nevertheless might come surely give our Commencement visitors The Williams Alumni Review 3 of 1914 occasion to sit up and mb their Perhaps it is as a result of the Chinese eyes. In place of the massive red brick Student Conference held last summer in stmcture of years gone by, with its lofty Williamstown that Mr. Tse-Ki Chow of “toothpick” spires, they will behold a Peking comes to us this year as a member New England meeting-house of the nob­ of the freshman class. Mr. Chow was a lest type—white clapboarded walls, white student for three years at the Canton steeple, and white columned portico. Christian College, has been for the last year and a half attached to the Chinese The old brick walls will be still there, to Legation at Washington, and now enters give strength and solidity beneath the Williams under appointment from his white clapboarding, but the outward government as a specially selected candi­ fashion of the “Congo” will no longer date for an American collegiate course. puzzle architects as to its classification. We welcome Mr. Chow (who wears his Those who love the style of the Colonial freshman cap as gracefully as any man period will welcome one more insistence in his class) as a worthy successor to his on the note which somehow seems to compatriot Yung Mung Chum Akum of echo clearest in this New England valley the class of 1843 (whose story was told of ours. in the Alumni Review for April, 1911), and are quite willing to approve the judgment of the Faculty in accepting his The action of the Board of Trustees in eleven years’ study of the Chinese classics putting the 'scholarship payments on a as a fair substitute for our usual Latin yearly instead of a half-yearly basis will requirements. meet with a general approval from all who desire to see Williams College attract A Lover’s Tribute and hold its proper proportion of men of Few men have known the mountains limited means. Hitherto, a man who round about Williamstown as did John failed to “get through” one of his courses Bascom of the class of 1849, and none has at mid-years, from whatever reason, lost left behind him a tribute to their spell his scholarship^ money for the rest of the more marked by eloquence and sincerity college year, and this factor may well than that to be found in the pages of the have deterred men who had to depend book, “Things Learned by Living”, pub­ upon scholarship aid from “chancing it” lished since his death. While the au­ at Williams. Now a man who obtains a tumn foliage on our hills is in its glory, scholarship will hold it through the year, and the heart of many a Williams man unless he is guilty of gross misconduct or goes back to the alpine climbs of under­ negligence. graduate days, we print this offering of The falling off in applications for schol­ that strong, upward-looking spirit among arships at Willis rr.s in recent years has our alumni, who was a poet as well as a caused concern to many friends of the philosopher. College, and such will welcome any plan “When I went to college, I met for which will tend to restore former condi­ the first time with mountain scenery, tions. and it has yielded to me the best relaxa- 4 The Williams Alumni Review tion and the most skillfully concocted world about us are like the cooings of a cup of physical and spiritual pleasures child in its cradle, a thing of sensations that I have anywhere found in life. I and unvoiced affections and an over­ have never been in the presence of moun­ shadowing presence.