We thought we’d revisit those school days of long ago by reprinting a few headlines from that fledgling paper for the 1909-1910 school year.
“Fortnightly Club Meets: Good Attendance at Postponed Meeting Last Friday Evening: Prof. Webb Selected Dante Theme,” October 27, 1909
“Doctor Kilgo’s Sermon: President Gives Masterly Defense of Faith Faculty of Our Mind,” November 17, 1909
“Watts Hospital Opening: Thousands View the Various Rooms and Listen to Addresses,” December 8, 1909
“Ninety Nineteen Initiate: Six New Men Taken through the Mysteries of the Order: Candidates Undergo Mystic Stunts,” February 23, 1910
“Mr. Nash on Fertilizers: Good Attendance at Regular Meeting of Science Club: Growing Interest in Club Work,” March 9, 1910
“Chronicle vs. Archive: Yearly Exhibition of Strictly Amateur Players, a Few Ringers Excepted: Most Exciting Game, Chronicle Wins,” April 20, 1910. (Yes, as the headline says, the Trinity Chronicle staff won that baseball game 8-5.)
“Commencement Program: All Arrangements for the Last Week Have Been Completed: Secretary Nagel to Make Address,” April 27, 1910
“Mr. Brogden Speaks: Popular Durham Attorney Makes Forcible Talk to a Large Assemblage—His Subject: ‘Habit and Thought,'” May 4, 1910
The RBMSCL warmly congratulates the Class of 2010!
Alice Mary Baldwin’s 95-page memoir, “The Woman’s College as I Remember It,” is now online! As the first dean of the Woman’s College at Duke University, Dean Baldwin had a unique opportunity to work for the equality of women and men students. She came to Trinity College in 1923 as the first woman to have full faculty status, and her efforts on behalf of equality allowed Duke to be very progressive. Her memoir illustrates her beliefs and efforts to mold the Woman’s College into an elite institution and shows her effect on Duke University as a whole.
Alice Mary Baldwin’s memoir is an essential resource for understanding the history of Duke University or the history of women in higher education. For more about Dean Baldwin, take a look at this brief biography on the University Archives’ website.
Post contributed by Crystal Reinhardt, University Archives Graduate Student Assistant
This past Saturday was the deadline for applications to Duke University’s undergraduate class of 2014. We thought we’d mark the occasion with a look back at a time before Scantrons and SAT prep courses, when students seeking admission to Trinity College (the forerunner of Duke University) might be asked to take a rather perilous entrance examination.
Administered to students without records of study from approved schools, the results of the examination determined which curriculum and class the student would join. The Annual Catalogue of Trinity College for the 1900-1901 school year presented prospective students with “Specimen Entrance Examination Questions” to help them prepare for the July examinations. Here they are, slightly edited for length.
Let us know how you do. We’ll be in the stacks, reading up on Silas Marner and the Battle of Buena Vista. History.
1. Describe the English explorations in North America.
2. Say what you can about the career of Capt. John Smith in America.
3. Compare the life of the Southern and the Northern Colonies.
4. Discuss the Navigation Laws.
5. What were the policies of Hamilton, Jefferson, and Calhoun?
6. Describe the battles of Saratoga, New Orleans, Buena Vista, and Gettysburg.
7. Who were Lycurgus, Plato, Cicero, and Solon?
8. Give outline of the Persian wars against Greece.
9. Say what you can about the Reformation.
10. What part did England take in the Wars against Napoleon?
English.
I. Decline it, who, goose, man-servant, heir-at-law.
II. Indicate possession in the following expressions by means of the possessive case instead of the phrase:
1. The armies of Lee and Grant.
2. The army of neither Lee nor Grant.
3. The property of Mr. Brown, book-seller and publisher.
III. Discuss all errors in the following:
1. This is his most favorite expression.
2. He is wiser than all men of his age.
3. He walked as if he was flying.
4. I wish I was in New York.
5. He promises to earnestly try and do better.
6. You feared you would miss the train.
…
V. Questions on the Required Reading:
1. What part do the Witches play in Macbeth?
2. Give an account of the Banquet scene.
3. Write a paragraph on the character of Macduff.
4. Comment on the following words in Macbeth: Obscene bird, benison, addition, seeling night, speculation, surcease, a modern ecstacy.
5. Give the story of Comus.
6. What authors are mentioned in L’Allegro and Il Penseroso? What landscapes are described?
7. Comment on the following expressions in Milton’s Minor Poems:
Yet once more, O ye laurels.
Sisters of the sacred well.
In Heaven yclep’ d Euphrosyne.
How faery Mab the junkets eat.
All in a robe of darkest grain.
Ennobled hath the buskined stage.
8. What does Macaulay say of the Puritans in his essay on Milton?
9. What reasons does Burke give for the love of liberty in America?
VI. Devote an hour to writing a paper on one of the following subjects, making special effort to give the story accurately, and to express it correctly as to spelling, punctuation, use of capital letters, and division into paragraphs:
1. The Tournament Scene in Ivanhoe.
2. The Story of Silas Marner.
3. The Spectator Club.
4. The Woman’s College in the Princess.
State what books in Mathematics you have studied and the amount of work done in each.
Latin.
1. State the Latin authors you have read and the amount from each.
2. Translate—Cæsar, De Bell. Gall. iv, 15.
Construe fully each word in section I.
3. Cicero In Cat. iii, 4, ll 1-11. (Do not translate).
Select and decline one noun from each declension represented in the section.
Locate the verb forms, explaining the subjunctives.
4. Translate Vergil, Aen., v, 13-25.
5. Write the Latin for the following: The Belgians, who inhabit one of the three parts of Gaul, are the bravest of all the Gauls, because they do not import wine.
Greek.
(The following sentences are taken from Woodruff’s Greek Prose Composition).
Translate into Greek:
69. 5. Tarsus is a large and prosperous city, at which the Cilician queen arrived five days before Cyrus. When the inhabitants of this city heard that Cyrus was coming, they fled to the mountains.
125. 2. Clearchus first spoke of the oaths which they had taken in the name of the gods, and said he would not count the man happy who was conscious that he had violated them. He said the Greeks would be insane, if they should kill Tissaphernes, for he was their greatest blessing.
…
French.
1. Translate into good English: One page selected from the texts the student may have read.
2. Give the disjunctive pronouns in full.
3. Explain the partitive constructions in full.
4. Give the principal parts of: Etre, dire, aller, pouvoir, faire, tenir.
5. Translate the following phrases:
Ces chevaux-la sont a Paul.
Je me mets a lire.
Nous en serons-nous alles.
Il vient d’apparaitre dans la rue.
6. Translate into French: I see a book on the table; whose is it? It is your brother’s. Take it to him, if you please. I will give it to him when I see him this evening. At what o’clock do you think he will come? I think he will not come before eight or nine. My house is larger than yours, but yours is finer than mine. Have you read the paper this morning? No, I have not yet read it; I am going to read it immediately.
German.
1. Translate into good English:
One page selected from the texts the student may have read.
2. Inflect in full:
Der kleine Bruder.
Diese schoene Frau.
Kein kaltes Wasser.
Grosses Hans.
3. Inflect in full:
Ich.
Er.
Jener.
4. Give the principal parts of: Entlassen, befehlen, geschehen, ausbringen, kennen, denken, studieren.
5. Translate the following phrases:
Es wurde viel getanzt.
Er soll sehr reich sein.
Das kind kam gelaufen.
Wie lange sind Sie in Berlin gewesen?
6. Translate into German:
In the room we found three little girls who had beautiful flowers in their hands.
When will you go to Paris? I wanted to go to-day, but now I shall be obliged to wait till (bis) to-morrow.
If he had taken the book with him, he would have told me so.
He looks (aussehen) as if lie were sick.
His younger brother said that he had arrived (ankommen) in town.
He claims to have read the book.
I did this in order to see if he could speak German.
The letter has not yet been written, but it will be carried (tragen) to the city this afternoon.
Come at half-past six and drink a cup of tea with us.
Tell him he is to go and get (holen) me some bread.
Also in honor of this Saturday’s football game against the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, we bring you this poem from the November 1893 issue of the Trinity Archive.
A Girl on Foot-Ball
A girl is not allowed to play foot-ball And to revel in the delights of a game. It is only for boys, large, strong and tall To win for themselves glory and fame.
And when the Trinity foot-ball team in honor roll They proudly exclaim, “The girls aren’t in it here,” But if they could see the “NORMAL” girls climb a ten-foot pole They’d conclude that they were up it there.
At Trinity the boys all think they know The reason the girls can’t play; Just let them look in the “gym.” room door And I guess they’ll believe what we say.
They say that we’re afraid to play Because we can’t kick the ball aright But I tell you don’t believe a word they say For, if we chose, we could kick it out of sight.
But though we do not choose to play, We can shout and wear the blue And be able from the depths of our hearts to say To Trinity we’ll always be loyal and true.
Three cheers for the boys who beat the “N. C. U!” Long may they be champions of the State And a girl that wears the Trinity blue May they finally choose for their mate.
We wonder what the author of this poem—it’s signed “Anon.”—would have thought of 1935’s Pink Pants by Ralph Y. Hopton. This novel tells the story of Brünnehilde “Pussy” Downing, the Amazonian star of Bowlby University’s football team. Wearing pink sateen pants, she single-handedly decimates Harvard’s team, finishing her pummeling of each linebacker with her trademark cry, “I think you’re me-ee-an!”
(N.B.: Established in 1887, The Archive is one of the oldest continuously published literary magazines in the United States and the oldest student publication at Duke.)
Since the first football game on Thanksgiving day of 1888 (we won 16-0), there has been a fierce football rivalry between Duke and UNC. Duke was the dominant team during the Wallace Wade and Bill Murray years, while UNC led in the days of Charlie “Choo-Choo” Justice and in recent years.
The rivalry has not always been civil. In order to foster friendly relations and to eliminate vandalism between the two, Duke and UNC student governments created the victory bell tradition in 1948. That same year, Duke introduced a new fight song, “Fight, Fight Blue Devils,” which includes the refrain, “Carolina Goodnight.”
The problem persisted and, in 1954, Duke and UNC agreed to expel any vandals found on either campus in response to graffiti painted on the Duke campus by UNC students.
The UNC mascot, Ramses, has also been a favorite target of Duke students. In 1977, the bighorn ram was kidnapped and the following note left in his place: “Please understand that this action was consummated in the healthy atmosphere of intercollegiate competition and rivalry and was undertaken with the principles of sportsmanship in mind.”
The rivalry and cooperation between the Duke and UNC is well documented in the University Archives. Tomorrow’s game will add another chapter to our history of friendly competition!
Post contributed by Tim Pyatt, University Archivist and Associate Director of the RBMSCL
From the Duke University Archives, a 1951 photo of the Duke University Chapel fondly known as the “ghost chapel” photo. The staff of the RBMSCL wishes everyone a safe and fun Halloween! (And feel free to bring us candy!)
For more photos of Duke, visit the University Archives on Flickr!
The press dubbed Doris Duke “the richest girl in the world” when she inherited a fortune from her father, Duke University founder James B. Duke, in 1925 at the age of twelve. Upon her death in 1993, Duke left the majority of her estate to the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. The Foundation recently gave its historical archives to the RBMSCL. The Foundation’s historical archives, 800 linear feet of materials (an amount that, stacked vertically, would be four times taller than the Duke Chapel), includes photographs, architectural drawings, and motion picture footage of Doris Duke and the Duke family.
Artist’s rendering of a proposed Duke mansion.
Records of Duke’s Foundation for Southeast Asian Art and Culture, the Newport Restoration Foundation, and the Duke Gardens Foundation are in the archives as are documents related to the operation of her properties: Duke Farms, a 2,700-acre estate in Hillsborough, New Jersey, that her father created at the turn of the 20th century; Rough Point, the Duke family mansion in Newport, Rhode Island; and Shangri La, her home in Honolulu, Hawaii, where she exhibited her extensive collection of Islamic art.
All of the materials in the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation historical archives will be open for research in about two years when processing of the materials has been completed.
