The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1913-07-17
SCRAP BOOK FOR TO-DAY

| 1
 The first class of Kings College,
 now Columbia University, matricula- tied 15s years ago today. when the in stitutfon was opened with a. class of
 eight, under Rev. Samuel Johnson as president of the faculty Such was the obscure beginning of the university which now leads America in the num-
 Der of students. The vestry-room of Trinity church was the first class
 room of the educational institution which now occupies a group of mag l nihcent buildings on Morningside Heights, in the heart of upper New
 York. The first college building was l commenced in 1756, and the first com
 mencement exercises were held two years later, when a score of students graduated. Kings College was estab- 1 lished under a royal charter, but first | after the revolution regents of a state i university were appointed, who took charge of the property and changed the name to Columbia College. The col
 lege made two moves from its origf-
 nal site in the lower part of Mannat-
 tan before the Morningside Heights site was secured in 1892. Four years
 later the name was changed to Col
 unbta University. The institution now
 has about 10000 students and faculty
 of "A.
 St. Alexius, whose festival is cele- brated today, won canonization and
 immortality by deserting his bride within an hour after his wedding, and for orsaking fortune and an honored name, devoting himself to poverty,
 piety and prayer.
 The parents of the saint were among the greatest of the nobles of the Rome of the fourth century. The family held vast estates and magnificent palaces, and to these AIexius was the heir. A1exius was betrothed to the
 beautiful daughter Of another prom irent Roman family, and the wedding was a brilliant affair. While the guests were feasting, and all were merry and gay, the bridegroom slipped away, leaving his bride and parents to mourn him as the victim of foul play. or as suddenly gone mad. Alex jus made his way to Edessa, in north ern Mesopotamia, now the city of Orfa or Urfa, then famous as an orien- tai seat of Christian learning, with many schools of theology and hun dreds of monasteries Alexius became 9 beggar and solicited aims at the gate of Our I1ady's church in Edessa- In the meantime his father sent men in all directions to search for him. Some of them visited Edessa, and, Alexis at the gate Of the church, gave aims and did not recognize him.
 Seventeen years passed, and Alexis, This sanctity niraculously manifes-l ted,'' sought obscurity in flight. He boarded a vessel bound for Tarsus, which was driven by contrary winds to Rome. In the city where he had once been numbered among the great, Alexis, the mendicant, passed un- noticed. His father was still living, and Alexis, without revealing hisi identity, begged from him mean corner of the palace for shelter, and the crumbs from his table as food. Mocked and derided by his own slaves the saint thus passed seventeen years, when death ended his self-imposedi martyrdom. Only then, from writ ing he left, did his wife and parents learn that the beggar they had shell tered was the long missing Alexis
 Robert Louis stevenson's .ssuicide club of fiction was intended as gen tie satire on the tendency of youth to take it's sstragedfes'' too seriously. ities, however, one of them being a sense of hurnor It Is not surprising that many sad and Respondent youths bowed down by the grief of unrec1pro- cated affection or other secret sorrow, have wholly missed the authors point and have, reading the book in sober earnestness, found in the story Of the suicide club'' a romantic and dra- matic means of solution of their own difficulties The death of a young man, who Jumped from steamer at New Orleans just a, year ago today. l July 1T, 1912, marked the end of just such a club. 'STo do or die'' was the | motto of seven young men who band ed themselves together in suicide club and entered into a compact to l kill themselves in case they failed of success in life All were college boys, | good families, and with every prospect of winning out in the struggle of life. All failed because life is so much a | so sssicklied over' with the thought of their pact and the dread fear of fail | ure. Within year one released him. self from his bargain by elf-inflicted death. Three others quickly followed his example, and then there were three left. Tn some manner the secret leak ed out, and the relatives and friends sought to diseuade the survivors from keeping their agreement. All argu-t ment and remonstrance failed. The Infatuated youths considered that their honor was involved, and all the more so because their secret had be- come known.
 Some peoples conception of the way to demonstrate their superior, brains is to get out in a park and | smash benches intended for public comfort.