Seventy Years Of The Worcester Polytechnic Institute: Page 111

legends concerns the substitution of a dictionary for the Bible from which Principal Thompson read the daily Scripture. This occurred in 1870. The Principal gave no evidence that he noted the change. With customary dignity, and for full measure, he gave from memory the entire ninety-first Psalm and closed with an unusually long prayer. A similar attempt to vex the good man was made a decade later, when a French lexicon was substituted. At that time also he recited several long chapters from the Bible and confused his impish audience.

The proximity of Mr. Higgins' barn to the campus was a natural temptation to students. On one occasion when a load of cord wood had been delivered at the barn late one evening, a group of students undertook the task of moving it to the roof of the Washburn Shops, wagon and all. To restore it to its rightful place was a more arduous task, for which there were no student volunteers. On another occasion Mr. Higgins' pung was extracted from the barn and used on a coasting expedition. The first attempt resulted in collision with a telephone pole, and the pung was returned to the barn minus some of its trimmings. A few days later the owner equipped it with noisy sleigh-bells.

The Higgins' barn and the outhouses that Dr. Chadbourne had advocated were occasionally defaced with class numerals and other samples of student proficiency in free-hand drawing. In 1877, on the night before the Fourth, the shops were entered and such supplies as alcohol, shellac and lampblack were removed. These were used to paint startlingly lifelife caricatures on the outhouse walls. The group of students who supplied the artists also removed Mr. Higgins' wagon and a heavy platform to the agricultural grounds; they also turned loose Mr. Higgins' horse. One of the ringleaders, who denied participation in the outrage, was dismissed. Others were suspended. The president of '77 was required to collect $25 each from the participants. An additional complication was that three of the raiders were members of the "first six." The faculty sent a long communication to Mr. Salisbury, in

111

webmaster@wpi.edu

Last Modified: Fri Jul 30 11:15:25 EDT 1999