Repository: UIHistories Project: Book - History of the University (Nevins) [PAGE 276]

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258 UNIVERSITY AFTER IT FOUND ITSELF being provided. It was atten.ded by many electrical engineers, and the Electrical World remarked that "the combination of exhibits of scientific interest with exhibits to catch the popular fancy, and the means used to advertise the~ show, prove the assertion we have often made—that the technically trained man is equal to almost any emergency." The circus, a happy idea of the athletic authorities, brought in over $1,000 at the first performance.^ The same craving for amusement was evinced in the readiness with which the women developed the Maypole dance, introduced by Mrs. Jeannette C. Lincoln, which by 1907 was attracting nearly 10,000 people. Finally, the post-exam jubilee, originated a few months after Dr. James 'a coming, and the "girls' stunt-show" which followed it, each a series of skits on contemporary topics, were institutions such as would hardly have been born at a college in or near a large center. [For bettering the tone of student life nothing was more important than the work of the Christian Associations, both of which realized before the end of the first decade of the administration their long hopes for homes. The year it opened, the Y. M. C. A., which had already bought the site it now holds, sold its lots east of the Engineering Building for $15,000. In the spring of 1906 a building committee reported that practically $100,000 would be required for a substantial, roomy building, and that of this $65,000 remained to be raised. Congressman W. B. McKinley headed the subscription list with $15,000 for a building and $20,000 for an endowment, and the remainder was Soon obtained. By 1908 the building, which contained dormitory room for over eighty men, a library, lounging rooms, bowling alleys, restaurant, and so on, was finished. It and its