T

HE ingredients of that composite but intangible thing that Princeton men worship under the endearing name of "Old Nassau are so numerous, so varied, so indescribable, that it would be next to impossible to take them apart and classify them. Famous men, contributions to learning and science, friendship, escapades, hereditary ties, historic links, songs, and thousands of characteristic incidents combine through decades and centuries to form the mystic object of our love.

and which has much to do with making the well-rounded man. Who, for example, shall measure the stimulus of pride in college colors? It is only in modern times that distinctive colors have become an accepted college usage. The crimson of Harvard is a recent thing. They used to sport the magenta, and had a college paper of that name, afterward changed to the Crimson when the new tint was adopted. As for Princeton, it is less than a quarter of a century since she discovered that she had a color. It was there all the time, for the Princeton orange was hers the moment the Colonial Governor Belcher dubbed the first college building with the name of Nassau. But for more than a century Princetonians went without colors, excepting the light blue of Whig, and the pink of Clio, Hall. It was a custom, which hundreds of living graduates remember, for the students to wear the badges of those renowned societies on all public occasions All rights reserved.

-that of Clio being an oblong pink ribbon pinned upon the lapel of the coat; and that of Whig, a long and flowing mass of looped blue ribbon worn on the wrist. At last the orange for the whole college asserted its prerogative, and the society badges almost disappeared, to the sorrow, it may be added, of many an old boy, who, returning to the college, looks for them in vain. The black was combined with the orange by way of relief to monotony, although it was thought to be on historic grounds.

The Princeton colors have

grown spontaneously into the college life, and a recent interesting and learned disquisition by Professor Allan Marquand, of Princeton, in support of orange and blue as the veritable colors of the House of Nassau, will hardly change a custom which has been gradually but surely entwined with the life of a generation of classes and embalmed in their songs. The only way in which the colors of Princeton have had official recognition is in the action taken by the Board of

And that Paterson, of the Class of 1763, one of the founders of the other, was the chief advocate with Oliver Ellsworth, of the Class of 1766, of the maintenance of State sovereignties, which view was by the Federalist Madison fused into the existing composite plan. These two societies-secret, mysterious, and ever in dignified rivalry-have formed the pivot of higher intellectual life at Princeton for more than a century. The absence of chapters of the minor Greek societies, represented in some other universities, is a hundred times made up by these two renowned and useful or

Trustees adopting an academic costume which indicates the degree of the wearer, and the Faculty granting it. Orange received the stamp of approval as the distinguishing color in the hoods which form a part of the costume.

Although the blue and pink of Whig and Clio Halls have yielded to the orange and black, the undergraduate life still centres around those influential literary bodies. Who can wonder at the unique celebrity of the American Whig and Cliosophic Societies when he remembers that Madison, of the Class of 1771, one of the founders of Whig, was also the statesman who furnished the basis for the noble political structure represented by the American Constitution?

ganizations, exclusively Princetonian and absolutely without competition elsewhere. To the training in literature, oratory, debate, and parliamentary proceeding given in Whig and Clio Halls, stimulated as it is by the peculiar atmosphere of tradition and scholarship, generations of statesmen, divines, and leaders of men have justly ascribed their success.

Intense interest has always been taken by the students in the division of college honors between the members of Whig and Clio Halls. On Commencement Day, when for the first time public announcement is made of the successful competitors for the long list of fellowship prizes and scholarly distinctions, the members of the

Halls group themselves respectively in the different portions of the building, and, as each name is divulged, vociferous applause, with the Princeton cheer, issues from the appropriate group. A printed discussion Occurred in 1870, each Hall, through a committee, claiming historic precedence. The controversy was hot and the language used not uniformly temperate, but the success of the societies in developing talent has run parallel with the accentuation of the rivalry. Formerly the whole college, with scarcely an exception, was represented in

Old President's House, now Dean's.

Dr. Patton.

the Halls, and the students were divided into two opposing camps. It was hardly practicable for friends to continue intimate relations if they belonged to different Halls, and it was a thing unknown for a Whig to room with a Clio. Some fifty years ago a leaf from one of the Halls blew out accidentally into the Campus and was picked up by a member of the other society, who, instead of returning it, and not quite certain that it was genuine, showed it to some of his own society members. The feeling became so strong that he had to be guard

ed in a room for nights, the society to which the paper belonged refusing apologies from the other. The Fourth of July celebration, theretofore the great annual carnival of the college, broke up that year, and it was nearly two years before the Halls were again brought into friendly competition.

It has until recently been the custom at Princeton for the two Halls to canvass each incoming class, and introduce every man into one or the other society. The practice may have been carried to an extreme, for the Committees had the habit of approaching students before they came to Princeton, waylaying them at the station,