Evening star., 1925-08-27

10 the college requirements
My friend replied:
Il thoroughly realize the Importance
of this and l assure you that we will
impress our men with the necessity
of keeping up with their studies, and
we will give all possible cooperation
with the faculty in seeing that they
do So
This is typical of the usual inter
change between the graduate mana
ger and the faculty. II might be print
ed on the first page Of any newspaper
| without any comeback" from any
body. But not so the remarks of the
graduate manager to the head coach
that night. He said:
old Splivens is out to pluck some
of our best men unless we can get
them hoped up so that they can sneak
by in their classes. We've got TO dog
these tramps around, and see that
they get to their classes, and we've
got to fix up some kind of system of
easing them through the examina-
tions."
How are we going to do it?" asked
7 the coach. We've got our hands
full as ii is"
Origin of the Rats"
There was a long discussion. Out
of II grew the suggestion that certain
undergraduates be employed to trail
the laggards, to report their attend
ance or non-attendance at classes, 10
check up on their use of their study
| and leisure hours and to get, compile
and deliver all possible informatio
| regarding their classroom perform
ances. The question of financing
this work was uppermost. 1t was
agreed that the annual financial re
port was sufficiently elastic to allow
these charges to be slipped in under
some other heading.
Thus the rats" as they later came
to be called, We're put TO work. AS
the attitude of the foot ball squad to.
ward this kind of checking up was
highly uncertain and Furthermore the
work of the men was such as to re-
quire them to stay under cover, the
rats never worked in the open. No
one but the graduate manager and
the coach knew anything about them.
Enter the Foot Ball Widow"
AT about this time the university
appointed a special tutor to assist ath-
letes who were backward in their
studies. Foot ball candidates received
special coaching when they needed it
and undoubtedly it was a sensible
Germ other than to do his work. His
| only job was to do the coaching and
it was none of his business after that
whether the men made the grade or
not. This tutor came to be known
and is still known-as the wet
nurse" He was useful for a while,
but 1t soon became apparent that
some of the lads-broad across the
hoa oh hat
needed some stronger medicine.
y. Out of this situation came the
widow" The widow usually was a
post graduate, or, at any rate, man
who had been around college a long
time and knew all the ins and outs.
While he was a sort of supertutor,
his Job was not so much to drive
something into resistant skulls as it
was to get the boys by the scholar
ship barrier-by methods of his own.
Unlike the wet nurse, he was not
paid out of university funds, but
subsisted mysteriously in that vague
domain of useful functionaries-the
mo Mans Land" of the annual re-
port
The widow knew all the snap
courses; he knew all the foibles and
eccentricities of the various profes-
; sors: and, above all, he could give a
pretty fair prospectus of just what
any given quiz would consist of in
the way of questions.
In fact, ! knew one particularly
competent widow who had made
elaborate lists of questions which
probably would be. asked by any
given professor. On the eve of ex.
animation the stragglers would be
drilled until they could give some
kind Of a rote answer to what were
believed to be the sure-shot ques-
tions.
] remember a big tackle from a
Nebraska town near Omaha who was
kept UP nearly all night by the
widow, trying to repeat the defiini-
ton of an "incorporeal hereditament.' -
He finally got SO he could say 1t,
without the slightest idea of what it
meant, and the next day this was the
first question out of the box. Thus
was saved 220 pounds of good foot ball
material which otherwise would have
been sidetracked. The widow" eer-
tainly earned his money.
System Highly Successful.
Naturally, a system developed by
which the rats and the widows
worked in close cooperation. When
the rats turned in some dullard, the
coach and graduate manager would
lash him to his classes-they used
to do it profanely in those days-and