Making History by Stephen Fry

Author:Stephen Fry [Fry, Stephen]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction, General, Science Fiction, cookie429, Kat, Extratorrents
ISBN: 9781409007623
Publisher: Arrow
Published: 1996-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Making History

He explained that students went from Freshman Year to Sophomore Year, from Sophomore to Junior until finally they arrived at Senior Year, the fourth and last. We were both, apparently, at the end of our Junior Year and known therefore by our ‘classyear’ of 1997, the year we would graduate. Steve was majoring in physics, but he wanted to be something else, not a scientist. A writer, maybe, he thought. He had taken courses in history and poetry and thought they were neat. A great deal more local lore was fluently given out as we walked. He pointed to an elegant, ivy-​clad building ahead. ‘An early governor of New Jersey, Jonathan Belcher was instrumental in bringing Princeton College here. If it weren’t for his modesty, Nassau Hall there, which is celebrating its two hundred and fiftieth birthday this year, would actually be known as Belcher Hall, which would be kind of embarrassing. George Washington drove the British from Nassau Hall way back in 1777 and five years later Princeton became the capital of the United States for a short while, and we are granted to this day the rare privilege of being able to fly the Stars and Stripes at night. Washington returned here to receive the thanks of the Continental Congress for his conduct of the war, and on 31st October news arrived to this very spot that the Treaty of Paris had been signed, formally ending the American Revolution. Visitors are requested to keep off the grass. Interior flashlight photography is not permitted. Thank you for your attention.’ ‘How the hell do you know all this?’ I asked. ‘I used to take around tour parties in my sophomore year. There’s groups going around all the time. You used to do it too.’ ‘I did?’ ‘Sure you did. Lots of students do. Good way to earn some dough. That’s Stanhope Gate over there. You pass through it on graduation, so it’s considered real bad luck

to use it. It’s gotten to be a kind of a superstition that no one goes out that way, except on the day they leave.’ I said I would rather look at the buildings which he considered would be the most familiar to me. “Kay/ said Steve, ‘we’ll go find out who’s in Chancellor Green, you spend a lot of time there. Let’s see what I can remember on the way. Oh, yeah, suck on this. In the old days the land around a university was called a yard or a green, okay? Then in the late 1700s the President of Princeton, Jonathan Witherspoon, he decided, being as how he was a classical scholar, to call the fields around Nassau Hall “the campus”, which is like Latin for “fields” and that’s why all school grounds everywhere are called “campus”. Great, huh?’ I agreed that it was great. He seemed pleased with my calm progress. ‘Now, something else,’ he said. ‘There’s two theories about why the top schools in America are called Ivy League, ‘kay?

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.