University of Virginia Library

XLIII. Student Life—Social Side, Continued

The claim was asserted for the musical clubs in 190405
that they offered students without any athletic aptitudes
a chance "to serve the University." The most
conspicuous of these were still the Arcadians. When
first organized, the performances of the Arcadians were
limited to light comedies, which required small casts
only; but subsequently, the musical field was entered,

which called for a larger expenditure for both the settings
and the participants. The first opera presented
was the Khan of Kathan, which was followed by the
Conspirators. Both imposed a more onerous charge
than the income of the organization could fully defray.
The next two, the Visiting Girl and La Serena, fell more
lightly on its financial resources. The King of Kong, a
comic opera, was, during a tour of the Virginian cities,
received with encouraging applause. This opera had
been composed by two alumni, and was placed behind the
footlights with a company of University athletes,
scholars, and unfledged scientists; the female parts were
taken by young men in seductive feminine disguises; and
the fidelity of their acting created a good deal of sarcastic
merriment. The fifth opera performed by the club was
entitled Turvyland. This was the composition of a
student of the law department; its first appearance took
place in Cabell Hall; but the expense which it entailed
was so heavy that no money was left to be carried over
to the following year. Such a comedy required the vigilant
service of an expert coach; and the number of actors
indispensable was so great, and the equipment in
costume and scenery so voluminous, that the costs, on
these various scores, ate up all the pecuniary profit. In
consequence, no play was offered in 1910–11.

This fact led to the revival of the Glee Club, an association
which had disbanded in 1905. A mass-meeting
of all the students interested in music was held; a new
vocal and instrumental club organized; and rehearsals
at once began. This club was composed of twenty
members. It gave two concerts in Cabell Hall and four
beyond the precincts. Choruses, quartets, and vocal
and instrumental solos, were skilfully rendered. This
association failed to re-form in 1912–13 and 1913–14, as

the result of the absence of an experienced and attentive
director and manager.

In January, 1915, Professor Hall-Quest, who, during
six years, had been in charge of the Princeton Glee Club,
undertook to reorganize the old association and train it
scientifically. A successful performance was given at
Culpeper in 1915. The programme on this occasion
consisted of a musical comedy,—a combination of vocal
and instrumental music and acting. As it was
thought that a dramatic setting was more pleasing to the
average audience than a bare and formal concert, special
scenery, in 1915–16, was procured, and elaborate costumes
purchased, for a comedy of this kind, to be limited
to two acts. There were forty-five participants in the
performances that followed, of whom thirty belonged to
the Glee Club and ten to the Mandolin, with a chorus of
six dressed as women. Though nominally independent,
the two clubs were under the guidance of the same president,
manager, and director.

The editors of the magazine were not satisfied with
the University's possession of a Glee Club and a Mandolin
Club,—they proposed in 1908–09, that a dramatic
club should be organized, of such talent and polyglot
learning that its members could act and declaim with
success the tragedies of Sophocles and the comedies of
Molière, in the original language; and their histrionic
capacity might even be tested by their undertaking the
exacting parts of Hamlet or the Midsummer Night's
Dream. In 1915, there flourished in college a dramatic
club, the principal membership of which had been recruited
from the families of the professors. Only a few
students had been admitted to it. A play entitled The
Wedding was performed by this club in Cabell Hall;
and, in the following year, the Ghost of Jerry Bundler

was brought out on the same boards. During 1908–09,
the atmosphere of the precincts very frequently vibrated
to the blare of a brass band, which had been organized
by the young men; and this band was still in existence in
1911, when it boasted the possession of fifteen instruments.
It had, during this year,—and doubtless
previously too,—been carefully trained by an expert
instructor.

Besides the occasions for diversion which these
numerous clubs and associations created, there were
others which were equally instructive or pleasurable.
From time to time, dramatic companies, like Ben Greet's
Woodland Players, gave performances in the open air on
the Lawn; or a concert by Miss Betty Booker or by John
Powell, or by these two artists together, was given in
Cabell Hall. In the same apartment, in November,
1915, took place the concert of the Russian Choir of
St. Nicholas Cathedral, New York, composed of thirty
members, both men and boys. The Sunday afternoon
organ recitals, which were attended by large audiences,
were influential in cultivating the musical taste of the
community at large. But more distinctly social, and
more spectacular also, were the tableaux presented by the
young ladies of the University or its vicinity. In one,
they were represented as living guitars; and this performance
was interspersed with musical numbers and
torch and gypsy dances. Informal receptions, under the
guise of soirees, were given at frequent intervals by the
members of the various fraternities in their houses; and
here also numerous dances came off.

But the gayest hours of the year for the lovers of this
pastime were the dances which were held on the eve of
the football game at Thanksgiving or the baseball, Easter
week. Many alumni returned to the University on the

occasion of either game, and the simultaneous incursion
of young ladies from neighboring finishing schools left
no room to complain of a dearth of agreeable partners.
In October, 1914, alone, five hundred visitors from
Sweet Briar and Randolph-Macon Women's Colleges
adorned the scene with their presence. Dances were
given by the German Club and the P. K. Society on the
evenings of the Thursday and Friday which preceded the
autumn game. But it was during Easter week that the
saltatory spirit flared up most brilliantly,—early in the
Ninth Period, germans were held, during this animated
interval, by the Eli Banana society, the german club, the
Tilka society, and the Beta Theta Pi fraternity; and after
the performances of the Phi Delta Phi in Cabell Hall,—
in which, as we have seen, local persons and institutions
were satirized,—a hop took place in the gymnasium;
and this was followed in one year at least by a bal
masque, given by the managers of Corks and Curls. In
1912, Easter week was enlivened by a variety of pastimes.
A burlesque "goating," a ball game, an aeroplane
flight, a dance by the german club, a second ball
game, a german by the Eli Bananas, a third ball game, a
german by the Tilkas, a track meet, a german by Beta
Theta Pi, a fourth ball game and a play, constituted a
succession of amusements. A tea at St. Anthony's Hall
in honor of the visiting young ladies and their escorts
was one of the additional features of the hour in 1913.

The social prestige of the Commencement, which,
formerly, had been predominant, had, by this year, been
to all intents, destroyed. It had been proposed five
years before to omit from the final exercises all purely
social events in which ladies had been participating, and
to retain only the plain observances necessary to matters
of routine; but that this consummation had not been fully

reached by 1911, was demonstrated by the german which
the Delta Tau Delta gave in Fayerweather gymnasium
during the closing celebration of that session. Practically
the social incidents of the Commencement were
now limited to an alumni luncheon, the class exercises
around the Jefferson statue on the north front of the
Rotunda, and a reception at the Colonnade Club.

An occasion of interest to the citizens of the academic
village was the College Hour inaugurated by President
Alderman not long after he took his seat. It was held
once a month, and it was established for the following
reasons: (1) the assembling of the University personnel
on a definite day once every thirty days would strengthen
the unity and solidarity of the institution; (2) it would
enable the officers, professors, and students to know each
other more thoroughly by the intimate influences which
it would bring to bear through songs, organ recitals, and
conversation; (3) it would cause teacher and pupil to
meet on a somewhat more winning and sympathetic basis
than was practicable in the atmosphere of the class-room;
(4) it would create an opportunity to single out and discuss
the large social and political problems of our times;
(5) it would give the President an occasion to unfold his
plans and disclose the prospects of the University; and
finally, (6) it would increase the capacity of the students
for cooperative effort.