Brown and White Vol. 5 no. 24

              committee on foot ball rules the annual meeting of the foot ball rules committee will be held in the near future the committee consists of paul dashiell of lehigh sears of harvard walter camp 80 of yale bell of pennsylvania moff'att of princeton and dennis of cornell and the call for the confer ence will as has been the case in the last three years be issued by the university athletic club the club has been informally requested to call the rules committee to gether but no action will be taken until an official communication has been received from the larger colleges this document has been drawn up and will be in the hands of the athletic committee of the club in a few days the meeting will be held in new york but it is expected that but few radical changes will be made ' the rule in regard to mass plays may be altered so as to eliminate or restrict the guards back play but other amendments will prob ably not affect the style of play in use during the past season the fact that the games between the larger colleges were remarkably free from any roughness proves that the rules come near to ful filling the requirements — yale news * okeson 95 was in town dur ing the holidays * noerr 97 is with the berlin bridge company of east berlin conn , ♦— : harvard will be represented by a hockey team this winter oberlin college ohio was the first college in the united states to admit female students notices attention is called to the asso ciation meeting on this sunday r jan 9 at 6.15 p m the subject the problem of our country will be interesting and profitable the committee desires a large at tendance there will be a college meeting in the lecture room of the physical laboratory on saturday jan 8 at 9.30 o'clock a m a full attend ance is required on tuesday evenings in januarjr and february the department of english will give in saucon hall a set of six lectures on early english literature open to all students ins the university all others inter ested are cordially invited to be present the dates and special titles of these lectures are as fol lows : jan 11 — wy cliff and the eng lish bible jan 18 — chaucer's canterbury tales jan 25 — langland's vision of piers the plowman feb 1 — gower feb 8 — the unproductive period after the death of chaucer and early scottish poetry all lacrosse men are supposed to be in active training from now om through the lacrosse season symington capt all candidates for the lacrosse team should begin taking the s o'clock drills in order to get into good condition before the regular lacrosse drills begin at the open ing of the second term symington capl freshmen the final re-examination in en trance geometry will be held in my lecture room saturday jan 8 be ginning at 9.30 a m c l thornbubg e e society meeting thursday jan 13 at 7j5 p m papers will be read by bucher and morgan '"• ♦ ! i , magee ex-'oo has entered ■%£ university of pennsylvania sophomore english second term the parallel readings required will be : 1 macauley's essays on sam johnson 2 carlyle's essays on sam johnson ; published together by holt & co 3 macaulay's " england in 1685 " ; republished from the " history " by ginn & co 4 carlyle's essays on burns published by leach shewell & sanborn 5 i)e quinccy's selections published by the same firm it is expected that these editions and no others will be used for the sake of uniformity prof thayer's lecture the first lecture of the series on early english literature was given last tuesday evening by professor thayer who spoke on the " transi tion period from anglo saxon to english literature the sub stance of the lecture is as follows : most national literatures have had two classical periods and the same is possibly true of our own an englishman well versed in the language of his country is able to read his chaucer with the aid of a liberal glossary and notes and this is archaic english yet essentially his own language taking the italian literature as a parallel the student finds that two writers of the first order of merit were in eome together in 1300 — dante the poet and villain the his torian their books are the sole safe guides to medieval life and customs however the cultivated italian still reads these books with ease therefore these books are a part of italian literature and before them the student finds himself involved in the study of a different language italy has had then two classical periods ; one latin and the other italian with no connection be tween them " the problem now resolves it self into this shall we call the earliest form of the literature of england anglo saxon or old english since there are many objections to each the one leading to least confusion should be chosen by taking on trial the name old english and following the develop ment of the literature through the 1400 years since the landing of the angles and saxons in britain we observe the unparallelled length of time since the origin of english literature if so it may be called to test the validity of the name read a few selections from the older literature of beowulf and caed rnan and observe if it may be re cognized as the mother tongue these and later works may be studied out with the aid of a dic tionary and a grammar and close resemblances found to the english tongue but we must study to un derstand them and no flight of fancy is able to call them eng lish if they are read aloud they will not be understood by the av erage intelligent hearer and this is probably the best reason for call ing them anglo-saxon the transition from anglo sax on to english is best understood by reading the works as they were written in the beginning of the fourteenth century we find our language beginning to take a form to be recognized and it is about this time that we reach the early efforts in our english literature beginning with the literature of chaucer and his contemporaries the condition advances through sev eral periods up to the nineteenth century and american literature is the brown and white lehigh university south bethlehem pa thursday january 6 1898 no 24 vol v calendar friday jan 7 — meeting of the whist club at 8 p m saturday jan 8 — college meet ing at 9.30 a m in the lec ture room of the physicals laboratory re-examination in entrance geometry sunday jan 9 — meeting of chris tian association at 6.15 p m in christmas hall tuesday jan 11 — lecture on " wycliff and the english bible at 8 o'clock v m thursday jan 13 — e e society meeting at 7.15 p m in the physical laboratory 98 class book the work on the senior class book was begun by the committee shortly before christmas , the prospects are very bright for those in charge as a large propor tion of the men in the class desire books the committee thinks it advisable for subscribers to ad vance one-half the price of the book this is no more than fair as a large sum of money must be paid to the publishers as security and considerable money must be raised for the current expenses various publishers have been asked for estimates but as yet nothing definite has been decided upon it is very probable that the book will be issued earlier than hereto fore as the committee has been prompt in starting the work bailey 98 a member of the com mittee is to be absent from college for some time and it may be necessary to select a man in his place a further development of the old inheritance in a new land oi all the writings previous to the fourteenth century the ma jority belong to the anglo-saxon and show a strong danish cast the first specimens of the present english literature were written in the east midland dialect the par ent of our present language the first prose writing was the account of the voyages and travels of sir john mandeville the other prose writings following it were either religious or scientific in character english ballad literature begins with the first half of the fourteenth century and close study gives us many traces the ' tale of gam ely n ' certainly had its existence before chaucer's ' canterbury tales that is before 1350 for the general reader the period be tween the anglo-saxon and the english beginning with chaucer may be ignored english litera ture began not earlier than 1300 and lasts to the present time and has but one classical period the 99 epitome the board of editors of the epitome have been at work during the holiday vacation and now have considerable copy ready ior the printed this year's book will closely re semble that of last year in many particulars some new and pleas ing features will be introduced which will add to its appearance so far the business manager has been fairly successful in his canvass among the advertisers and if the plans of the board can be carried out a possible reduction in the price of the book will be made printed slips similar to those sent out by former boards will be distributed among the undergradu ates either at the college meeting on saturday or early next week a box will be placed in packer hall in which communications con tributions to the gag and quotation department or other matter in tended for the board may be dropped