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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (April 1, 1900)
THE BATTALION. 17 fful Mexican lion you may have heard about, still ventured forth, testing our •courage and “seeking whom he might ^devour.” The prairie appears almost boundless, since no enclosure serves as a line of demarcation and since the irregular fringe of timber has already put on the leaden hues of autumn; it appears all the more dismal since great clouds of grasshoppers—unwel come visitors from Kansas —have stripped it of every vestige of plant growth, leaving nothing but the naked ashen soil. Twenty young men have arrived, some from the pine woods of the east, some from the extreme North, some from the shores of the Gulf, and one, at least, from the very banks of the Itio Grande, to enter this, our first State institution of learning. They are quartered temporarily on the sec ond floor of the mess hall, are eagerly awaiting the opening of school, and in the meantime are indulging in all sorts of pranks to while away those dreary hours of expectancy. “And thereby hangs a tale.” Well indeed do I remember the occurrence of that night, in which it seemed as if all the goblins and witches that once chased poor Tam O’Shanter “ayant the brig” had been turned loose once more. I remember, but the telling I prefer leaving to others. Rogan and Banks and Crisp, who were here then and are present to night, will recall with me how our footsteps resounded and re-echoed in the long halls and corridors of the main building when on the morning of the first IMonday in October they were thrown open to our occupancy; they will remember the portentious sound with which our “articles of war,” the rules and regulations of the college, fell upon our eager ears; they will remember how hats, pressed against window panes, served as mirrors to those who were particu lar about the tying of a cravat and the parting of their hair and how- footf tubs, did duty at all the ablutions of the pioneer cadets. Fine buildings, rich endowments and costly furnishings do not make great colleges or universities—-teachers and students do. Socrates, walking arm in arm with Plato in the grove of Aeade- mas constituted a school of philoso phy, the greatest the world has ever known. More vividly even than mate rial environments do we “old-timers” recall the men who had been selected to shape the destines of this the magnifi cent Agricultural and Mechanical Col lege of Texas, our first faculty: Presi dent Gatbright, the rriend and confi dante of Jefferson Davis, quick in movement and quick of temper, perhaps somewhat haughty in demeanor, but ever ready to advise those who ap proached him frankly as father would; venerable, white-haired Dr. Martin, whose Christian gentleness called forth obedience and respect even from the most unruly; Major Banks, kind of heart, a true friend to every young man. a ripe scholar, a perfect exemplar of the southern gentleman;. Professor Wand, smiling and placid as a day in June, a veritable Chesterfield in every word and act and gesture; Alexander Hogg, the man of tireless energy, al ways wrapt up in calculations, always planning to use x y and sines and cosines as levers in quickening the world’s progress; lastly Major R. P. W. Morris, the young man of the faculty, a soldier every inch of him, with a clarion voice whose command ing tones would ring across the entire