Judge, 1917-02-03 · page 15 of 28
Judge — February 3, 1917 — page 15: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a humorous college scene at Ohio University depicting a conversation between two male students (May and Tom) about their classmate Jack's New Year's resolution. The joke plays on the gap between Jack's stated intention and his actual behavior. Jack claimed he'd "sworn off cutting" (skipping) his 8 a.m. classes starting in the new year. However, Tom reveals that since January, Jack has conveniently arranged his entire schedule so nothing starts before 9:30 a.m. The satire mocks the common human tendency to make earnest resolutions while simultaneously finding clever workarounds to avoid actually keeping them. Rather than discipline himself to attend early classes, Jack simply removed them from his schedule entirely—technically keeping his resolution while completely circumventing its spirit.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
AT OHIO UNIVERSITY May—Jack told me he had sworn off cutting his eight o'clocks for the new, year. Tom—Huh! Since January there's nothing on his schedule earlier than nine-thirty!