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A GREATER GETTYSBURG (counted here as one activity), Student Council, Y.M.C.A., the musical association, debating, and Owl and Nightingale. Although the total amount available for distribution in 1931 was only about $5,000, the Student Chest was a decided improvement over previous methods of financing these nine important activities. College Publications In the fall of 1904 College publications included the annual catalogue, which the faculty issued during the early part of each year; the weekly Gettysburgian, a newspaper which since its inception in 1897 had been entirely controlled by the students who edited it and managed its business affairs; the monthly Mercury, a literary journal begun in 1893 and continued under the auspices of the literary societies; the annual Spectrum, published each spring beginning in 1891 by the junior class in honor of the departing seniors; and the annual Students' Handbook (called in this chapter the G-Book, its later name), issued each fall since 1895 by the Y.M.C.A. for the benefit of the incoming freshmen. The 1911 catalogue, which was the first to list and describe College publications, explained simply that all of them "aim at enlarging the means of communication between the College and its graduates, former students, and friends."326 The Gettysburgian, Mercury, and Spectrum were expensive publications whose bills their staffs were often unable to pay. The recurring and serious financial problems of the latter prompted the trustees in 1898 to establish a committee of three faculty members to supervise the finances of all of these publications. Although somewhat reluctantly, this committee tried to do its thankless duty and make the required annual reports, detailing for the trustees the efforts of the students to pay past debts and avoid creating new ones. Then in 1908, responding to what they considered to be inappropriate Gettysburgian comments about the developing College difficulties, the trustees moved far beyond their earlier resolution when they created a second committee, manned by faculty members whom the board president appointed, and directed it to take "charge of all student publications, with a view to securing better literary 326By the first decade of the century the College was also issuing occasional calendars and viewbooks for use as promotional pieces. In 1911 it took advantage of certain provisions in the postal regulations to inaugurate the Pennsylvania (later Gettysburg) College Bulletin, which began as a quarterly publication. Volume 1, Number 2, was the 1911 catalogue. Volume 1, Number 3, included the annual report of the president and three other College officers. 64