Requirements for admission included languages, literature

There probably isn't a person in Topeka today who would have been accepted as a student in the early days of Lincoln College or Washburn College.

According to the first bulletin promoting the school, candidates for admission were examined in the grammar of Latin and Greek. They had to be proficient in algebra and have mastered Virgil and Cicero's Selected Orations. Most importantly, they had to provide testimonials from others of their good moral character.

By 1899, recruiting pamphlets noted that the faculty "endeavors to prepare students for general usefulness in life and a thorough preparation for advanced work in graduate and professional schools."

To be admitted, students had to pass proficiency exams that were given in June and September. They had to demonstrate a general knowledge of a long list of authors and works which included "Paradise Lost" by John Milton, "Macbeth" by William Shakespeare, "Palamon and Arcite" by John Dryden, "Flight of a Tartar Tribe" by Thomas DeQuincey and Homer's "Illiad" books 1, 6, 22 and 24. They were tested on ancient and medieval history, natural science and plane geometry.

Passing the entrance exam was just a warmup for the curriculum. According to the school catalog, freshman courses included poetry and prose of the Victorian era, zoology and sociology, "to gain a true humanizing culture for practical civic and social ends." The study of paleontology would focus on shells and fossils near Topeka. Students would learn to sight read the Latin works of Terrence and Plautus and master Greek in order to read writings of Homer, Herodotus and the New Testament in original form.

Classes in elocution and oratory also were required, to train students in "free use of voice, ease in gestures and action cultivated so speech may express personality of speaker, including vocal physiology, proper use and care of voice and well as use of body in development of vocal energy."

Not every class Washburn has offered over the years has been so serious.

A marionette class --- for credit --- began about 1930. It was the outgrowth of the hobby of Arthur D. Gray, a Topeka physician. The popularity of his creations prompted administrators to invite him to introduce the work at Washburn.

Entire productions were conceived, constructed, costumed and staged by the students with the goal of entertaining school children. In 1939, the group experimented with a marionette ballet and vaudeville acts for the spring program in the theater of the Mulvane Art Museum.

In 1940, the marionettes assumed familiar faces, according to a story in that year's Kaw yearbook:

"In order to arouse interest in the 75th anniversary celebration of W, the college commissioned Millard Bryan (instructor) to make marionettes of three college officials and take them along with the other acts of entertainment to alumni meetings over the state. Figures were of Philip C. King, president; Robert Stone, chairman of the board of trustees; and Lyle Armel, director of development. These men recorded a special dialogue about the college and its plans for celebration during this anniversary year. There are now 250 marionettes in the cupboards of the department."

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