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After being denied access to the Voices of the Class show due to space constraints, I happened upon a copy of the script for the show that a Gads member had somehow forgotten. It’s a good read. I am just curious as to whether reading is anywhere near as entertaining as seeing it performed.
I probably shouldn’t post any excerpts, but rest assured that it is quite good.
Each summer, Amherst College supplies children from various day camps and summer programs with food, housing, and access to its facilities. The college also allows the summer programs to use Amherst’s Campus Calender for their specific uses, furnishes them with IT user names, and allows the camps themselves to use golf carts on the walk paths.
The large numbers of children make being on campus during the summer a particularly surreal experience for Amherst students. Walking though the freshman quad today, it suddenly dawned on me that I was the tallest person in the area, which became even more strange when, for an instant, it seemed as if every Amherst student had been swiftly replaced with a younger version of his or herself. Children with backpacks walked together in pairs and in groups. They were loud, they were oftentimes obnoxious.
“I have a terrible backhand,” one child said. “But if you catch me serving, you’d better watch out!”
But they are still children. This becomes evident in Valentine hall, an environment not adapted for people of such small stature. For them, receiving dishes from the servers requires an unavoidable reaching up, and the trays are oftentimes wider than the children themselves. Their small hands clutch the silver tongs with difficulty as they reach for bunches of grapes. They stand on the tips of their toes as they press their glasses to the soda dispenser. Walking among them, it becomes quite apparent that the world is a difficult place for people of their size. They seem to wander around aimlessly at times and, to experienced Amherst students, quickly become tiresome.
The lower level of Valentine is reserved for the children, with the upper level being dedicated to “quiet adult groups.” The noise does not restrict itself to the lower floor, however, and one often becomes subject to the various highbrow conversations of the children.
” Ha! Look at his face,” one child exclaimed with an air of discovery. “He does look like pikachu.”
“He looks more like cow poop to me,” said another, scoffing.
That is not to say that all of the children are less than nine years out of their mothers’ wombs. The assortment of camps ensures that that there are children of all ages on campus during the summer. One program in particular, Excel, consists of class components where older students tackle the tough questions, including, but not limited to, whether or not “Chuck Klosterman is a pretentious jerk.”
One can’t complain, though. The dining hall would be completely empty if the children were not around. The campus itself would be deserted. Thus it is not a stretch to say that it is preferable to have hundreds of hyperactive children screaming around you then to have no one at all.
In 1857, Massachusetts Governor Joel Hayden of Haydenville donated funds to Amherst College for the building of a state of the goddess Sabrina. The statue was built that very same year, and weighing at a bit over three hundred pounds and standing at a height of four-and-a-half feet, it quietly sat in the flowerbed between North Dormitory and the Octagon.
The statue remained peacefully until 1860, when an Amherst student adorned the statue in clothing, which would later become a trend for students looking for a quick laugh. That same student, after being harshly reprimanded by College authorities for his offense, later struck the statue with an axe, causing that was later repaired.
The abuse of the statue continued. In 1870, after the expulsion of one of their numbers, the class of 1870 had the entire statue whitewashed. By 1884, the statue had found itself dumped on the roof of the octagon, placed on the chapel tower, and thrown into the college well.
By this time, the President Seeyle of the college had already considering seeking an end to the exploits of his students. He assigned the college janitor ‘Professor Charlie’ a task – to destroy the statue. Professor Charlie, however, fell for the beauty of the statue and, instead of destroying it, hid it under a pile of hay in his barn, where it remained for two years.
Then, in an event that is as surprising as it is unlikely, the goddess Sabrina is said to have appeared to two members of the class of 1890. It was then that the goddess announced itself to the two men and effectively began a feud that would last for a long while.
What began as a relatively simple purloin quickly developed into a conflict 
among classes as the class of 1889 stole the statue from the class of 1890. 1889 soon passed the statue on to the class of 1891, which resisted 1890’s repeated attempts to steal the statue back.
The tradition continued, with Sabrina being hidden in all sorts of places, including coal mines, bank vaults, and the bottom of the Connecticut River. Protected by ‘Sabrina Men’ who were also assigned to present the statue to fellow members of their class each year, the statue has been held primarily by members of even-numbered years
Sabrina made an appearance in 2005 at the class of 1980’s 25th reunion. Not in the best shape due, the statue was once again hidden away by the class.
Sources:
Shoop, Max. Sabrina: The Goddess of Amherst College. 1910.
