THE LOWELL SPIRIT
Lowell University wasn’t one of those little colleges about which books
for boys are often written, nor was it just a big college. It was the
greatest University in the East. It had thousands of students and
hundreds of teachers. It was a rich college with dozens of buildings.
A great many hundreds of the boys who had been graduated from it, poor
boys and rich boys and medium-fortuned boys, now held high positions in
the big world outside.
Two of the boys who had attended school there years before and who
had played on its athletic teams had become Presidents of the United
States, and every year while these men were in the White House they
came to attend the big football and baseball games, and acted just like
boys again, while the games were going on at least. Other boys had
been made members of the Cabinet and a great many had become Senators
and Representatives in Congress while still others had become famous
ministers, doctors and merchants.
The students were made up of sons of rich families and poor alike. Boys
from the farms and from the city. Of those who were lucky in having
rich fathers, there were quite a number at school every year. Some of
them had finely furnished rooms, servants, automobiles and other things
which a rich man’s son generally has, and it must be said that a great
many, in fact, most of these boys developed into men of fine character
and ability, and made their marks in the world.
A few thought they were better than those who didn’t have so much
spending money, but they didn’t get very far or do so much in the
world, either in school or after they got out.
The spirit of Lowell was democratic, and with the exception of these
foolish fellows, the sons of the rich associated with the poor fellows,
particularly where the honor and fame of the school were at stake.
The poor fellows associated with the rich boys whenever they got a
chance. They lived in cheaper rooms and worked a little harder, because
the bright boys soon figured out that they would have to hustle to keep
up with the rich fellows.
Some of them worked during the vacations and earned enough money
to keep them at school during the winter just as they do at other
colleges, and some of them looked after furnaces around town, or waited
on tables at the boarding houses and did other things to assure their
schooling. Fully as many of the poor fellows who had been graduated
had become rich and famous in life, and one of the two who had become
President of the United States was a poor farmer’s boy.
The Faculty of the University wanted the students to mix with each
other and didn’t want any difference to be shown between rich boys and
poor, so they encouraged all athletic games, and this brought about
exactly what they wanted. There is nothing like athletics to put boys
on a common ground, and a fellow was always welcome to show what he
could do.
They had a fine athletic association. The equipment was the best
that money could buy. The best coaches in the world were secured to
train the boys in the different sports, and everything was done in a
business-like way. This made it possible to select the teams on merit
alone.
Any fellow who thought he could do something in the line of college
sports had only to report for a trial at the proper time, and at the
place called for in the notice, and he was given a chance to show what
he could do. The merit system picked him out and in that way the best
possible team was secured. If he had done one thing better than some
other fellow, he got the job, and he could keep it until some other
fellow who could do it better turned up and pushed him out of the
position.
If a fellow thought he could pitch he was given a chance to show what
he could do before the coach who was engaged especially to try out the
pitchers. If the coaches thought he “had it in him,” they would bring
it out. Very often, some young fellow showed up who proved to be a
wonder, and he got on the Varsity the first year.
This spirit attracted from all over the country boys who wanted to
enter college. It made college life very attractive and more students
came every year, and somehow Lowell University got more and more in
the habit of having winning teams in most college sports. Likewise, it
was usually Lowell boys who carried off the lion’s share of the Jerry
Harriman Scholarships in baseball.
In baseball, Lowell had most always been the champion. Her basketball
and hockey teams were only beaten when outlucked; her crew was beaten
but twice in twenty years. Only in football did she seem to fall
behind. Year after year she would get a team together that would win
its way through the games with the other schools in the East, hardly
ever scored against, only to fall before her old time rival college in
the West in the final game of the year. This happened in spite of the
fact that all of the cunning and ability of her coaches, captains and
managers were used to get a team together that could beat Jefferson
College.
But this past fall they had finally turned the trick against Jefferson
and won for the first time in five years. Half-back last year and
Captain and Half-back this year, good old Hughie Jenkins who had won
the baseball Championship three times, had done it, and now he was
back after the Christmas vacation, and when he had time to think about
something besides his studies he would be thinking about baseball and
the gaps in last year’s winner that would have to be filled because the
old standbys like Fred Penny, Johnny King, Joe Brinker and others had
been graduated.
“Well,” said Hughie one evening about the middle of January, to his
roommate and chum, Johnny Everson, “I have about five weeks before
the 15th of February to dream that the new fellows who think they
can play ball are going to be as good as the old boys and I am going
to have another winner this year, if--well, we just have to win the
Championship this year, that’s all.”
Little did he know that among those who had seen him on the day he got
back after the holidays, were almost a half dozen boys who had been
in school only five months who would make the Varsity this year, and
whose names would be written very near the top of the Roll of Honor in
Lowell’s Hall of Fame, and that another fellow, one who was destined to
be greater than all the rest, had not yet arrived.