Seventy Years Of The Worcester Polytechnic Institute: Page 163

meeting, and in a letter to the class there was a threat of withholding faculty recommendations to employers, "because the sentiments of your publication reveal such a want of manliness, sincerity and courtesy." The next three classes gave up the idea of a class book, but it was revived in the "Log of '88" a wholly innocuous publication that did not displease the faculty. The class of 1890 confined its desire for a souvenir to a book of pictures.

Then came the Aftermath, "A Log of the Class of 1891." All the pent-up resentment about schoolmaster attitudes was let loose, chiefly in pictorial form. There was a sketch of Boynton Hall, "The Jail," flying a pennant, "The Students be damned!" There was a picture of Boynton St., then Faculty Row, which was labeled "Via Assinorum." Dr. Fuller was caricatured leading the singing of the famous chapel hymn, No. 44, "Let us with a gladsome mind . . ." and as a spy in sneakers treading the corridors of Boynton Hall.

Five members of the class, editors of the book, received on the commencement platform, in lieu of a sheepskin, a white envelope containing an announcement that their diplomas had been withheld because of the objectionable book. Four other members of the class were also refused the degree because of a final failure. Few other incidents in the history aroused student resentment to such a white heat. All of these nine men, some of them the most prominent in the class, received their diplomas later in the summer and went forth to make creditable, and a few, distinguished careers.

The only subtle reference in L'Expose of '92 was its dedication to the "Athletic Spirit of the Faculty." The Aftermath Of '93, Tale of the Goat, went a step farther, being dedicated "To the next President of the Institute." It was also guilty of publishing -the faculty list with blank lines in the space where the President's name should have appeared, supposedly because Dr. Fuller had requested the editors

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