Repository: UIHistories Project: Book - Banks of the Boneyard (Charles Kiler) [PAGE 48]

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52

On the Banks of the Boneyard

on State property," was going too far—and besides it was entirely untrue. There were students who lived in Springfield who had danced on state property, so we knew someone was ribbing us. I remember a visit paid to the University by a group of girls from the Illinois Female Seminary of Jacksonville, an institution sponsored by the Methodist church, and one of the girls thought it was a shame we couldn't have a dance; now I ask you if it would be courteous to disappoint a group of good-looking girls; of course it wouldn't, so we took them up to the Adelphic Literary Society Hall, cleared out a floor space, wheeled a piano into the clearing, and were having a grand time dancing the waltz, schottisch, polka, etc., when the door opened and in walked Professor I. O. Baker on his way up into the tower to wind the clock! To say that the professor was properly shocked is putting it very mild, but he wasn't feeling any worse at that terrible moment than were the boys who could be punished for this monstrous violation of the rules. The dance stopped; we all ran down those long steps and out into God's sunshine feeling guilty of having committed an awful crime. The girls went back to the Illinois Female College thinking surely they would be punished, while we boys braced ourselves to face whatever chastisement the authorities might give us. They weren't so bad as we thought they would be because we appealed to the gallantry of the faculty committee that heard our story; I think we were warned never to do such a heinous thing again, and of course we promised to be good! But the straw that broke the camel's back, or maybe I'd better say that the straws which added up broke the camel's back, came when Billie Miller '92 was reduced from first lieutenant to a place as private in his military company, for failure to maintain an average eighty-five per cent in five studies. This incident led to a riot that upset the old order and was the real start toward making our alma mater a great University. It is therefore fitting that it be given a place in University history. There was a rule which read that no man could hold a military commission if his grades fell below eighty-five per cent in five studies, but this rule had never been enforced and when Billie was made the victim of a rule that heretofore had been regarded as obsolete, the entire class in military science went on a strike in which most of the student body joined.