California has done a lot better job retaining The Axe than they have secrets from the ChiComs.
California has done a lot better job retaining The Axe than they have secrets from the ChiComs.
THE STANFORD AXE
EARLY CALIFORNIA TRADITIONS AND THE AXE CAPTURE
By Brick Morse, California, '96
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A university without traditions is poor indeed.
Traditions have come and gone at the University of California. The college still has its traditions which have survived the best of years, but it seems to me that the most interesting traditions have gone the way of all flesh.
Three California traditions of the past stand out in my memory, the Burial of Bourdon, the Mortarboard Rush and the Stanford Axe. The first named was a grand spectacle and a free-for-all scramble between the two lower classes. Such a rough-house affair could not survive as the University became larger. The Mortarboard Rush was kayoed by a faculty edict and the Axe tradition came to a sudden and violent end recently when Stanford regained the lost emblem.
The Axe tradition is the most important to the younger generation, but first let us hear something about the older traditions. The Burial of Bourdon was a solemn ceremonial staged by the Freshman class at the end of their college year.
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