TIME AND THE GODS

Besides the unfortunate bellringer, who is forced to get up every morning early enough to ring the seven o'clock bell, there is another member of the University staff who appears to be over-worked. This is the gentleman who lifts the 1500-pound and 1000-pound weights for the Memorial Hall clock. One is inclined to regard this statement with skepticism, if not absolute disbelief, but it is well authenticated. Of course, this Herculean task has to be performed only once a week, and, it seems, can be accomplished in a single hour, but a hundred foot tons sounds like a great deal of work.

The reliability of the great clock incidentally is remarkable. There are several kinds of perfectly good time--Sidereal time, Naval Observatory time, Western Union time and perhaps others--but Memorial time is none of these. In-deed, the Memorial clock has the distinction of keeping not even it's own time consistently. Gaining twenty minutes in three hours is a world's record which not even Jules verne could equal--but ordinarily, from day to day, its little variations do not exceed five or ten minutes.

In a way, it is unfortunate that the peculiarities of the clock have been revealed and the cherished belief that it gained one minute a week regularly thus destroyed. Belated students hastening to nine o'clocks will derive small comfort if the clock indicates five minutes past--when it may possibly mean ten minutes past. And if perchance, its solemn gong should announce the arrival of ten o'clock at an unseemly, early hour, such as half-past nine, there will be wise and knowing shaking of heads instead of a healthy, jubilant rush for the doors. Ignorance has always been bliss for those who wish to live "happily ever after." But this depressing exposure of the big clock's idlosyncrasies should be regarded philosophically. Time pases unnecessarily fast anyway.