Pg 08

8 THE PHOTOSPHERE.
saw, too, with others, the same frightful visage. It is not to be won-
dered at then that she lay, as it were, dormant for this season of
political discord. Through the years 1862-'63 and '64, in which time,
too, the institution and all connected with it were overwhelmed with
the loss of the college President, though the society continued as
such, she did not venture to come before the public; and it was only
after the smoke of battle and the din of war had cleared from off
our land, now in very truth the land of freedom, that she appeared
with pristine vigor, on the 8th of December, 1865, to aquit herself
more favorably than ever.
As the sky appears the more beautiful by reason of recent clouds,
so it was with the W. A. L. S.
For two years there seemed nothing to impede her progress. In
1867 there was a reunion of the two societies; but this tranquil sea-
son was only the calm that preceds the storm.
The second term of 1868 found the number of students so reduced,
by reason of the many changed in the course of instruction and in
the faculty, that but two members of the W. A. L. S remained, and
consequently a suspension of her workings was absolutely necessary.
With the change of college Presidents, and the beginning of the year
1869, there was a complete reorganization of the society, and here it
was that the name was changed from the W. A. L. S. to the W. L. S.
Since that time, though again grief-stricken by the loss of the
college President, her motion has been a progressive one; with each
succeeding year she has appeared satisfactory, in her anniversary be-
for the public. On the 28th of April, 1873, she petitioned the court
of the county of Centre for an act of incorporation, and on the 25th
of August, 1873, it was decreed by said court that the Washington
Literary Society possessed all the powers and innumities of a corpora-
tion or body politic in law.
Progressive her motion has been, and under the present administra-
tion of the institution it is likely to continue so. For what is to the
interest of the college is to the interest of the societies in the college.
Then let us hope that this is the light of the first phase and that they
may mutually continue to wax brighter and brighter and that the
point of cumination is in the far distant future.