Chapter VIII · EXHIBITIONS, ENTERTAINMENTS, AND SPECIAL OCCASIONS (continued 2)

Gray was working his way through the University back in the eighties. It was his ambition to become a Government entomologist. He was forced to take leave of absence for one year to earn money to complete his course.

In spite of his narrow means and close attention to his studies, Gray began to acquire a campus reputation as the man who never went to chapel. Attendance was compulsory in those days. Selim H. Peabody, then president of the University, called Gray on the carpet, but the student was firm.

“I am an agnostic,” he said. “I will not go to chapel.”

“Write a statement that chapel attendance is repugnant to your religious convictions, and that will suffice,” said Dr. Peabody.

“I will not. I have no religious convictions; I am an agnostic. I simply will not attend chapel,” said Gray.

He was suspended forty days before he was to have been graduated.

President Edmund J. James, of the University, came upon the papers in Gray’s old and forgotten case a short time ago when he was engaged in rounding up the old alumni for a home coming. He wrote to Gray in Chicago, and urged him to visit the University.

Gray, embittered by a vain fight that had taken his last dollar years ago and had ended only in the State Supreme Court, to compel the University to give him his degree, replied curtly that all he wished the University to do was to forget him. President James wrote again that chapel rules were obsolete now, and that they wanted to give Gray his belated degree. Gray came here to-day, and from a big crowd of undergraduates he will hear for the first time the cheer of Illinois. College yells were not much known in Gray’s day here.

UNIVERSITY CLASS DAY

New York Sun

The Columbia seniors had an honorary valedictorian at their class day exercises yesterday afternoon whose name was not on the programme but whose presence on the platform called for ten minutes’ continual cheering. Fifty years after he had been graduated, and upon the eve of his retirement from the university, Dean John Howard Van Amringe became an honorary member of the class of 1910, and yesterday, when the class was celebrating its last reunion as undergraduates, Van Amringe, ’60, made a farewell address to the class.

When the class marched out of the gymnasium at the conclusion, the white haired dean and the senior president went out side by side, on the “pilgrimage” to Hamilton Hall, where the class ivy was planted.

The exercises were held early in the afternoon in a room thronged with the relatives and friends of the graduates, who marched into the gymnasium dressed in academic cap and gown. Robert Scarborough Erskine delivered the president’s address of welcome. Francis N. Bangs, a son of Francis S. Bangs, who had much to do with the abolition of football at Columbia five years ago, was the class historian, and he divulged class secrets. He made the statement that a ballot of the class showed that forty-one of the eighty-seven members have more than a passing liking for beverages stronger than water, while fifty-two delight in using tobacco. Bangs did not go any further into the intimate history of the class.

Harry Wilson of Sioux Falls, S. D., was selected the most popular man in the class, the one who has done most for Columbia, the most likely to succeed, likewise the noisiest, and the biggest politician. Howard Delane was chosen the best all around man and the best natured; he was elected the recipient of the alumni association prize to the most faithful and deserving student, which is the highest honor a senior at Columbia can gain. John Mentil was elected the best athlete; that distinction he gained with ease because he has been captain of a championship basketball team and is on the varsity baseball team. Clarence Renton won the rather doubtful honor of being the biggest fusser and likewise the most foolish man in the class. Sidney Glide took first place in the race for most conceited and grouchiest while Arthur Schuarz was designated the laziest, biggest sport and biggest bluffer.

The statistics of the class as a whole showed that the average height was 5 feet 10½ inches, the average weight 151 pounds and the average age 21 years 5 months, making the 1910 men the youngest set that has been graduated from Columbia in some time. Most of the members of the class were born and live in New York, although every part of the country is represented. Thirty-one men intend to study law, ten will take up engineering, nine have chosen medicine and eight will go into business. The others were hazy as to just what they were going to do, or were too modest to tell about their plans. More than half the class is Republican, and there are only ten Democrats. One man declared himself a “Bryan Republican.”

The class decided that Prof. Hervey was the best teacher and the hardest professor to bluff. Prof. Charles Arthur Beard was elected the most popular professor, and William Clinton Densmore Odell, a brother of the ex-Governor and a professor in the English department, was elected the most polished. The history department was considered the best in the university, while the French department increased its lead in the contest for the least desirable, getting the fifteenth successive annual vote for that honor.

Benjamin Berinstein, one of the two blind men in the class, was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, with Thomas Alexander, Paul Williams Aschner, Ernst Phillip Boas, Mortimer Brenner, Louis Grossbaum, John Dotha Jones, Russell Thorp Kirby, Herman Joseph Muller, William de Forest Pearson, Edward Heyman Pfeiffer, Maurice Picard and Rollo Linsmore de Wilton.

Berinstein stood at the head of the list. He has studied for the last year in the law school, having completed the first three years of his course in the college last June. James Henry Mullin, the other blind member of the class, received commendation for his work.

Condict W. Cutler read the class poem, and the class prophecy was delivered by C. Homer Ramsdell of Newburgh, N. Y. Geddes Smith of Paterson, N. J., made the ivy oration, after William Langer and Dean Van Amringe had delivered their valedictories.

William Allen White will deliver the annual Phi Beta Kappa address in Earl Hall this afternoon, on “A Theory of Spiritual Progress.” In the morning the seniors and the faculty will play the annual baseball game on South Field.