Purpresent!

A hundred and sixty years ago today, some Chicago businessmen and Methodist Episcopal ministers met and discussed the need for a university to serve the people of the former North West Territory.

In honor of this great day in the history of education, decency, clean living and the battle against Communism, allow me to present the stirring words of NU's alma mater:

Hail to Alma Mater
We will sing thy praise forever
All thy sons and daughters
Pledge thee victory and honor.
Alma Mater, praise be thine.
May thy name forever shine!
Hail to Purple! Hail to White!
Hail to thee, Northwestern!

And no, if you'd have asked me to sing this song or even identify more than a quarter of the words when I was an undergraduate, I couldn't have done so to save my life. Heck, I had to go look it up even now. I was pretty sure that it had the words "purple," "white" and "Northwestern" in it, and since it was an alma mater, I figured the words "hail," "victory" and "honor" were in there somewhere too.

All I know is that as long as the Purple and White are around, there is at least one institution dedicated to thwarting the diabolical world-dominating schemes that originate in Champaign-Urbana.