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I had the most wonderful find this afternoon when, after lunch, I went over to McCabe to get some reading matter. I finished Sense and Sensibility last night -- delightfully witty, as Austen is. I had previously looked up and wanted to read Dean Everett Hunt's The Revolt of the College Intellectual, on the history of Swarthmore during the Aydelotte years and on the recommendation of indecisionwins. I also got John Henry Newman's The Idea of a University, something I've also been told I ought to read, by one of the most influential Catholic intellectuals of the 19th century.

That, however, wasn't what I was really surprised and glad to find. As I was leaving and walking past Friends Historical Library, I noticed a cart with old Swarthmore books (Cygnets, College Bulletins, and other things going back years) for alums to take freely. And there, I found a 1929 Swarthmore College songbook, beautifully bound in black leather with the College seal (not the current one with Parrish) stamped on the cover in gold.

A lot of interesting tidbits... the current alma mater isn't the original one. There was a new tune for the current words in 1929, new enough that it was glued into the cover as the "new melody", although we sing the older one now. Many of the songs are fraternity songs, and most of the other ones are football/fight-type songs, for instance "On, old Swarthmore / Rush right through that line / Rush the ball around old Haverford/ Touchdown sure this time..." Swarthmore has certainly changed a lot since then, but I think there are a few gems in that volume. It is certainly a piece of Swarthmoreana I'll hold onto for years.

I wonder how Bryn Mawr Stepsing songs have evolved over the years, were it possible to compare what they sang then and now.