"Oh, jolly times, you are no more"

Stumbled across a dairy of a former UW-Madison student while I was sifting through the university's digital archives at work. Sindey Dean Townley was an astronomy student who earned both his undergrad and grad degrees at UW-Madison between 1886 and 1892. His thoughts on graduating and leaving Madison:

Thursday morning Boly left for Fox Lake and since then I have been at work getting ready to pull out. Expect to leave Madison for good tomorrow, to stay home for a week or so and then go to the Lick Observatory for a year's work and study. Will have charge of the time service there same as I have had here for the last three years. I do not regret at all leaving the city of Madison; I regret but little leaving old U.W. now that I have gotten all that I want out of it, but I do regret sincerely leaving dear old Mendota and the college girls. No more pleasant rows, no more beautiful sunsets to watch, no more rides home by the light of the moon. Oh, jolly times, you are no more. I will hie me away to the top of a mountain where there is scarcely water enough to drink. Never will I regret the day I came to the University of Wisconsin. Six years I have spent here and I will probably never spend another six in a more profitable manner. A college education is a grand thing and something that no one can ever regrets [sic] having obtained. It lifts a man up, gives him broader ideas and above all teaches him how to think and investigate. 

                                                                                              -June 17, 1892