last week of May groups of men begin to thicken about the campus. Underclassmen, juniors, heroes of the day, seniors, sceptics, and scoffers, to whom the future offers nothing, all but the forty-five society members who are withdrawn into their remote temples, sweeps, conversational moth ers, graduates ruminant of the past, and professors, swell a crowd which wavers about the fence in thrilling anxiety, the perfect type of a ΧΟΡΟΣ ΓΕΡΟΝΤΩΝ, eager to praise or blame, sagacious after the event, but impotent before the march of fate.

As the college chimes ring five o'clock a senior from each society comes upon the campus into a hush of expectation.

He

James L. Kingsley.

walks solemnly to the crowd of men, enters it, threads his way about with a fixed gaze at nothing, and often passes by the object of his search until finally he comes up behind his man, taps him on the back, and with the accolade bids him sternly "Go to your room." With relaxation of the strain. comes applause, varying with the popularity of the elected man, and generally louder if his fortune was unexpected. In an embarrassed rapture he goes to his room as a hero to the abode of the gods, attended by the senior as his sponsor Valkyrie. What happens there is the first mystery. From this point the elections are given out in rapid succession as the after

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noon wears away, and within an hour all hopes are realized or defeated. For a few days the elected men may receive the congratulations of their friends, but on the following Tuesday they pass the frowning portals of the hall and their lips are sealed. If there appears something of the childish in these observances, as no doubt there is, especially in this particular demonstration, the unfamiliar critic should consider that Yale men almost unanimously applaud their influence and cherish their existence. In 1884, when their selection of members had not met with the complete approval of the college, a proposition was made for their abolishment and a mass meeting called. A prominent man who had failed of an election delivered an enthusiastic eulogy upon the system, and the proposition to abolish was defeated by an overwhelming majority.

The moral and intellectual atmosphere of the training of older Yale was in keeping with the physical aspect of the recitation-rooms, formal and ascetic, with an uncompromising ugliness of bare whitewashed walls and blackboard, mourning badge of learning, which stood for discipline and arduous effort. The turbulent youth crowded on the yellow benches were subjected to violent temporary repression beneath the grim looks of the tutor who faced them in his little pulpit, presiding over the sacrifice, an unrelenting ἵερος. In other relations he was a good fellow-over beer and pipe he might rise to heights of geniality, but the ordinary tutor was in the class-room a sphinx before whose questions many ambitious youths perished miserably. The intellectual rigidity which his severity enforced always became painful before the lapse of the full hour of recitation, so that the explosion welcoming some touch of humor in the proceedings was as violent as the repression had been austere, and the unhappy tutor often found himself suddenly confronted with a crisis not necessarily included in the experiences of a highstand past.

"What was the laticlavius?" said the tutor to a pitiable wretch of that order whose intellects transfuse the solid facts of positive knowledge into a nebula of vague conjectures. Boldly he concealed the weakness of his defences and faced

the enemy: "It was the garment which the Roman matrons wore when they went into the Cloaca Maxima."

Equally unfortunate was the youth who volunteered to give the parentage of Trojan Ganymede. "He was," said he, "the son of Mount Olympus and an eagle." Some doubt being expressed as to the exactness of this biological statement, he proved his faith in authorship, and shocked a drowsy room into clamorous applause by reading triumphantly from the preface to his Ovid: "And Ganymede was borne to Mount Olympus by an eagle."

Even the mathematics recitation, usually a desiccated repast, was sometimes flavored with a taste of humor. A muchloved professor was deeply pained to see an estimable young man, whose knowledge was at his fingers' ends, put that knowledge into his pocket upon the professor's approach. In a voluble attempt to cover his manœuvre he said: "Professor, I think this sine of alpha can be computed upon a different theory." "Sir," mildly replied the professor, “it is a condition and not a theory that confronts you."

The men were unruly enough in those older days to justify the faculty restraint which was laid upon their irresponsible doings. The unpopular tutor was an object for humane pity. Regularly upon Saturday nights the vandal brick aimed by the hand of some Bacchic celebrant would bring with it through his window the cool night air of January. Uproarious bursts of mirth in his class-room would be so frequent as to suggest that they were not altogether adventitious. Had he a propensity for exceeding the hour of recitation, some hidden alarm clock would rattle out a reminder or a concerted shuffling of feet would express the impatience of his scholars. Mr. Washington Value, the ancient teacher of dancing when that polite accomplishment was a feature of a New Haven education, was goaded into such a Gallic frenzy that he exclaimed:

front gates from a pile of such pieces of real property erected on the green, and a subsequently distinguished professor of Columbia College developed his taste for physical experimentation by shooting an arrow into the clock with the philanthropic purpose of delaying the arrival of the hour for morning prayers.

The practice of stealing signs was once accounted honorable, and many tablets of industrious tradesmen were borne by night into the caverns in the old brick row. It is told in "Sketches of Yale College" (1843) that on one occasion Tutor Divitiacus observed the plunder-laden flight of two of these thieves and followed hastily. The men, conscious of the pursuit, locked their door, thrust the sign into the stove and began a very audible reading of the Holy Word. The pious man would not interrupt the exercise, which ended only with the complete incineration of the sign and the closing verse: "A wicked and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign, but no sign shall be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah."

Those were the days of hazing, when unduly clever freshmen were haled from their quiet rooms to distant saloons, where they rowed furious races with toothpicks on tables slippery with beer, "browsed," with hands tied, upon paper pinned several inches above their noses upon the wall, or repeated the oration of their school commencement with compulsory gestures. Sometimes they were marched up Chapel Street at the head of a platoon of remorseless infanticides and compelled to announce to the interested townsfolk their names, genealogy, and personal claims to notoriety. Of these and kindred practices the higher civilization of a university has left only the mild disorder of campus bonfires, generally laid so as to consume the few remaining spears of grass dear to the heart of the Superintendent of Grounds and Buildings. With the first flicker of the barrel-fed flame windows fly up with startling rapidity and a chorus of "Fire!" breaks out which lasts for fifteen minutes and drops off with scattering shots from distant South Middle or the Lyceum. An inexhaustible piece of humor is the imputation of the origin of the blaze to some unhappy scholar or immaculate deacon whose light may be burning. This inforVOL. XXII.-3

mation is disclosed by the Socratic method, a single interlocutor putting the question, "Who lit that fire?" and Durfee, Farnam, Lawrence, and the old brick row responding as one" Highstand lit that fire." The centre of all campus life is and always has been at the Fence. Up to 1888 this Palladium of liberties stood at the southeast corner of the campus on the spot now occupied by Osborne Hall; in that year it was removed by the faculty to its present position in front of Durfee Hall. From prehistoric times this famous seat of learning has had the sanctity of an institution. It represents the most important article in that unwritten constitution of democratic principles which is the creed of every Yale man. Night and day it receives innumerable rivulets of common leisure, tributary to its havens of idlesse. Thigh to thigh sit scholar, athlete, and Bohemian, in a guild of fellowship far better than the dusty ruts of learning

No fears to beat away-no strife to healThe past unsigh'd for and the future sure

learning a mutual respect and an appreciation of life which could not be gathered from the contemplation of a cuneiform inscription, or a journey into the wastes of spherical trigonometry. As the Master Apologist for idlers has it: "There is certainly some chill and arid knowledge to be found upon the summits of formal and laborious science; but it is all round about you, and for the trouble of looking, that you will acquire the warm and palpitating facts of life.”

After the manner of all Gaul the Fence, in its material aspect, is by the fiat of tradition divided into three parts—a generous stretch of rails for seniors and juniors, a smaller one for the sophomores, and a little tail-piece for the freshmen, which they may enjoy only if and when they overcome the Harvard freshmen at baseball. In fighting days the juniors, the very Erinys of inter-class warfare, used continually to incite the freshmen to break established law and seize the sophomore fence, and then would the battle rage as over the ships at Troy, and many reputations be won. After a time the freshmen would become conscious of the superiority of sophomore organization and de

cline to provide amusement for the unscrupulous juniors.

The Fence fills its peculiar function with each class. The slender freshmen stand without the gates and worship with reverent desire for the days of enfranchisement when they may sit upon it and whistle the Freshman March at other freshmen yet unborn. For the sophomores it tops Olympus. It is a sufficient joy to be envied of the freshmen and with "Procul, procul este, O profani!" to preserve its sanctity from unhallowed touch. With new-fledged pride of worldliness they rub elbows with upper classmen and watch the grave and reverend seniors in their games. Sophomores always act with the united energy of an explosion, and for an escapade the Fence is an unrivalled locus proficiscendi. It is in sophomore year that a man whittles his name upon it. In junior year, when individualities are grow ing and it becomes a familiar thing, more subtle delights, more intellectual enjoy. ment of character or of contact made possible by broader experiences come from its use, and elaborate glees and madrigals supplant the roaring songs of sophomore year. The seniors have a touch of sentiment at the thought of approaching dissolution and begin to feel its power as an institution, even when they lay destructive and incendiary hands upon the seat of their affections.

At the Fence the seniors welcome spring with tops and marbles, an indulgence which has always been their especial prerogative, and the freshmen have always assembled on Washington's Birthday for their banger parade, while their natural foes perch upon the rails in the new glory of silk hats. Advertisements of the sale of furniture, signs of spring, plaster the surrounding trees, and here used Hannibal, student emeritus, to sell his wares "of saccharine sweetness." Gentlemen," he would say, "I vow and assert that the confections which I now present for your consideration are worthy of that reputation which it has been my pride to create and my earnest ambition to uphold. Their perfection is most excellent, and their sweetness unparalleled. De gustibus." A favorite amusement of idleness was to provoke Hannibal and his ancient rival "Davy," now deceased, to debate upon

metaphysical subjects. The dead languages were revivified and quotation, aphorism, and, at the last, personal epithet hurtled in full shock until a sated audience would straggle down to Mory's and slake the fever of spring with cool ale.

Has any benighted soul never heard of Mory's or of Mory's ale? That "woody" ale? Those nooks for placid thought and sympathy? The house of Mrs. Moriarty, shining with pewter, hospitable with toby and fragrant coffee, with twin golden eggs and flanking toast, shrines the memory of many quiet hours. An atmosphere of contemplation and reminiscence pervades the rooms and makes them fit for meditation or for confidence. The genius of the spot dislikes merry-making or noisy mirth, and casts his spell only upon those who appreciate the subtle charm of drowsiness and seclusion from garish pleasures. In each class some solitary soul makes it his haunt and drinks lethean ale into his blood. You may find such an one on a warm spring afternoon, when the whole college is afield or afloat, brooding in a corner or hobnobbing with some forgotten author, companion of his slow pensiveness. In the winter season rowing men will settle here some anxious question about the height of foot-braces or the distribution of the weight in this year's boat. Members of X. A. O. discuss the latest Kipling story or the tendencies of college writing. Many secrets of politics are hidden in the dusky corners, which could startle the world with the real reason why "Bibulus '81 didn't make Bones," or how Sychophantikos got into a sophomore society. Here are libations of "musty" or of the treacherous compound velvet" poured before the victors in class races, and here do graduates of all ages and degrees lament the decay of manners and mark with an "Eheu, fugaces" the passing of the golden age of their time. Of late years the patrons of Mory's have been used to carve their names upon the round centre table, and when no more space remains, the table-top is removed and hung upon the wall for the gaze of future generations, so that the voices of the past speak with the personality of a name.

Mory's affords no shelter to the wandering freshman. He may not enter its sacred portals except under the tutelage of

a superior, and even then he is subject to discomfiting ridicule if he order ice-cream or a chicken sandwich. Truly, the eighteenth century laws in restraint of freshmen are but slightly relaxed.

In earlier days the youth who were temperate in their indulgences regaled themselves at a booth opposite South College on fried pies, ginger-bread, and root-beer, the simple products of Pond. Those who preferred stronger waters descended into the town to the cosey taproom of a publican, named Lake, whose pumps drew porter, stout, and half and half. The presence of the great Lake gave a richer tang to the ale, for his early days had been spent in the English prizering. He wore knee-breeches, gaiters, a frieze coat, and an air of gentle ferocity in keeping with his past, but he left the serving of beer to Mrs. Lake, a woman with a ruffled cap and portly unruffled dignity, who sat behind the little bar.

A rake's progress from the peace of a boarding-house to Pond's insidious pies and the dissolute haunt of Lake ended at the Woodcock, a supper-room in Court Street, where midnight suppers and champagne, eked out from months of economy, shocked the revellers with a sense of their depravity. No such quail have ever since whistled in the Connecticut wheat-fields, and canvas-back duck have mightily degenerated since the ghost of Lucullus was laid in those golden days.

The organization and development of intercollegiate athletics now absorb much of the energy that used to be given to such dissolute wanderings or to the furious internecine warfare of classes. From im memorial time there were mighty games of football on the New Haven Green, in which whole classes engaged. The freshmen posted their formal challenge on the bulletin of Lyceum, and the supercilious acceptance of the sophomores named the day for the struggle. "Come," cried the Class of '60,

And like sacrifices in their trim

To the fire-eyed maid of smoky war,
All hot and bleeding will we offer you.

And the Tyrtæus of '58 cheered his mates with the noble lines:

Let them come on, the base-born crew!
Each soil-stained churl-alack!

What gain they but a splitten skull, A sod for their base back!

On the bloody day appointed, both sides massed in heavy column with Napoleonic tactics-while the New Haven fathers surrounded the field. When the round leather ball was kicked, two hundred men clashed together in frantic, shoving, dusty, roaring chaos, the one side striving to kick the ball to the Chapel Street fence, the other to force it to the steps of the State House. Swift runners hung upon the outskirts to seize the ball, chance-directed to their feet, and hurry it amid full-gazing applause to the goal. But it was in the middle press where deeds were uncrowned, where shirts became streamers and rib squeezed rib until they cracked, that the heroes of war and the college Bully were to be found. From this Titanic struggle the degenerates of today have evolved the emasculated game which they call football, a wretched sort of parlor pastime !

The particular savagery of '58, who gave battle with painted faces in fearful attire, excited the actual physical interference of one of the faculty, who charged upon the combatants, a member of the church militant, and found immortality in the lines :

Poor '58 had scarce got well

From that sad punching in the bel
Of old Prof. Olmsted's umberell.

Then there was rowing-real rowinganother sport of heroic virtues, for it was done in mighty barges which only strong men could pull, not in attenuated shells with factitious aids to speed, and the gallant craft-that was their poetic way of alluding to it—was put to practical use by carrying Commencement maidens out to New Haven Light, an eight-mile pull. This was of course far more agreeable to the rowers than snatching at the water in a furious effort to get a few inches ahead of eight other unhappy men, and it is very much to be suspected that the girls liked their share in the occasion better, too.

The first race with Harvard took place at Lake Winnipiseogee in August, 1852, and was a sort of agreeable junket for the oarsmen. There were boat parades, evening entertainments and a two-mile race, won by the Oneida of Harvard from the