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CLASS PROPHECY.

The past and present of the class of 1903 has been fully treated here to day.  The future alone remains for our consideration  What are we going to do? Every man has a future whether it be one of glory or one of failure.  Probably none of us will become President of the United States or Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, or president of Howard University.  We do not have to become one of these personages to achieve success - there are other road to fame.  In fact, I am sure that it is far better to be useful than to be famous.

Not long ago, as I sat musing over the future of our class, I fell asleep and dreamed I had left the prosaic present and was living in the distant future.  I though I was far away in the West India Islands where I had been residing under my own vine and fig tree about fifteen years, when suddenly the even tenor of my peaceful life was broken by the visit of (Captain Dodson) an old classmate.  The captain was looking well and will you believe it, he had grown a dear little dream of a mustache - what strange freaks Time works.  After our greeting we sat down to have a quiet chat.  Naturally we talked of former schoolmates.  I learned that the commanding officer of our battalion had continued his military career and was now a captain in the Regular Army, stationed in the State of Hawaii.  I was also informed that another captain, who formerly resided on Capitol Hill, had become a resident of Vermont Avenue, between S and T Street.  Of course this conversation made me quite homesick.

As it was time for my vacation, and I had not been home for a number of years, we made the return trip together.  When we arrived in Washington, I beheld strange sights and heard strange tales.  A number of young men who had been members of the section known as B[[subscript]]2[[[/subscript] were still furnishing the great necessity "Hot Air" to all whom they could hold up.  Miss Hines had become the proprietress of a large millinery establishment, while Miss Roane was filling the position of assistant directress of cooking.  Miss Newman, who was at one time an assistant teacher, was now a principal and doing well.  Mr. Eugene Lucas was engaged in the stock-raising business, and had developed a number of fine horses at Pimlico, Md.  We all remember that Lucas purchased this place at Brightwood in April of the year of his graduation.  Miss Mason, of business fame, was head bookkeeper [without pay] in the general supply store of Grant & Co.  Mr. Gardner had evaluated into a Professor of Argumentation at the Washington Institute of Law and Cantankerousness.  Miss Bessie Ware was engaged in missionary work among the people of Southwest Washington.  Miss Steward had become the owner of a large sewing establishment in this neighborhood, and Mr. Johnny Spriggs - dear old Chesterfield Spriggs - had opened a drug store.  Spriggs had opened a drug store - Our hope is that his patients will not succumb while waiting for their medicines.

During my stay in Washington I was also very much pleased to be a guest at a dinner party given by Miss Waring, of upper Twelfth Street, who was still a great social belle.  I had a very enjoyable time, and met an old classmate - Mr. Roscoe Vaughn - who was now directing a large contracting business.  I spent another very pleasant evening at a musicale, given by Miss Maude Morgan, assisted by Misses Lloyd and Simmons as soloists.  One day I met Mr. Elbert Corbett.  You would have hardly know our old class president, for he was bandaged from head to foot, and reminded me more or a veteran just from war than a professor in the Chemical Department of the Armstrong School, which position he had been holding for some year.  Upon inquiring I learned that an accident had befallen him as the result of careless experimenting while trying to outwit Remsen.  Every day I heard some fresh news about our classmates, Wormley, of the "Specials," was now a boiler inspector for the District, and Mr. Howard Thomas was living the life of "single blessedness" on a farm. The day before I was to return to my post, I was out for a bicycle ride.  Chancing to pass along Seventeenth Street, my attention was suddenly attracted by the loud cries from the keys of a typewriter.  I stopped to find out the cause of all the racket, and a search revealed Mr. Whittington Bruce, now known as the Register of the Treasury, seated at a desk, dictating to Mr. Attrell Richardson, his typewriter and stenographer.

To my surprise and great disappointment, I awoke at this point to find it all a dream. Yet I reasoned to myself that dreams are prophetic; and I am glad to say though it was only a dream, there are hopes and prospects of such events occurring in the future, which would make this class of 1903 famous in years to come, for many of them will no doubt shine as bright stars in the firmament of Old Armstrong.

JOSEPH COGBILL, C[[subscript] 4 [[/subscript]]

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[[image - black & white photograph of the Armstrong Manual Training School Class of 1903]]