the plow and began raising harvests on ‘Zion’s’ hills. No sooner had one been handed his ‘ sheepskin ’ than he hied away toward the Rio Grande to raise yet other sheep. And so we might go on through the entire roster only to arrive at the inevitable conclusion that a four years’ diet at an intellect ual restaurant does not necessarily incapacitate us in following our natural bents. 11 You may break, you may shatter the vase if you will, But the scent of the roses will hang round it still.” Some years ago ’twas mine to stand below the “ Pack Saddle” through which the Conemaugh flows usually in softly singing ripples, and I saw what resistless power and destructive capacity reposed in the waters suddenly released from one reservoir. As I recall that historic afternoon and night, the thought thrust itself upon me, what a dire calamity has been averted by not turning the entire Alumni of the Pennsylvania State College loose at one fell moment, but instead dribbling us out year after year to reform society. It seems but yesterday that I saw collected in the woods of Blair county the tiger of India, the lion of South Africa, the camel of the Sahara, the bison of the West, the wolf of the North, and the monkey of the South—a congress of the entire globe’s ani mal kingdom. The wreck of Main’s menagerie to me but typi fied what a college may do in bringing together widely dissimilar individuals and blending all into a closely linked, multi-phased Alumni. You may perhaps feel at first disposed to resent being likened to a circus, but you must agree with me that at best a Freshman is but little else than a wild animal newly caged and out of his element, whilst an Alumnus is a creature that has been thoroughly subdued by long captivity and prolonged, enforced association with relentless tamers in the shape of college professors. You can plainly see that my subject is so broad and deep that I may not so much as ' stake out ’ its boundaries or define its per spective. You fully realize that our toastmaster but gave an other evidence of the possession of the shrewdness for which he has long been noted in assigning to me a theme of such breadth and scope that I could not possibly, by either accident or design, get off the right of way even if I did jump the track—pardon my tendency to lapse in my accustomed vernacular. I know that you do not expect me to follow ourselves sever ally, when to do so collectively is a Herculean task. A flock of The Free Lance, [June,
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers