The image of a reader engrossed in a book on the banks of a stream is taken from the bookplate honoring donations of books to the Youth Collection in the General Libraries at the University of Texas at Austin.
The illustration was first used to introduce the "Classes" section in the 1917 University of Texas Cactus yearbook. "Classes" was drawn by Julien Sherley Elfenbein (1897- 1983). Known as "Elf," Elfenbein worked as a cartoonist for the Texan, the campus newspaper, before serving as yearbook editor in 1918.