The Portland daily press., 1880-02-28
College Colors and their ORIGIN.

In looking over college colors, one is rather
puzzled that there is no college with sufficient
patriotism to have adopted the national colors
as its own, and might suppose that the red hav-
ing been discarded Columbia has made use of
the blue and white; but this is not the origin as
we shall show Columbia is one of the few
colleges whose colors have a literary origins
which is just what should be the origin of ey-
erything pertaining to college and to college
life.
In the Spring of 1852 according to the tradi-
ton related by the Oldest inhabitant), the two
literary societies of Columbia-the Peithologi-
an and the Philolexian-d to give q
joint entertainment which should make use of
all the talent in the college, and eclipse all 9TH
er entertainments of a similar nature. Neither
wishing to yield to the other the "honor of the
flag" W hich had been bequeathed to them by
the founders, and by so doing to sink its own
individuality, and finding that for badges and
tickets all four colors would be too much, a
compromise was decided upon, the result of
which was that the gold and silver were dis
carded, and the blue and white retained. The
effect was found to be SO good, and the want of
definite color became at this time so evident,
that it was decided to adopt these as the colors
of Columbia, and as such they have been ac-
cepted without question by class after class.
For badges and ornamental emblems the blue
conventional blue and silver.
The colors of Princeton are not, as is often
enormously supposed to be the case, black and
orange, but orange alone, the black having
been added merely for the sake of contrast, as
the orange alone would be too garish. To touch
bottom in the traditional well, and arrive at
the truth in this matter, is of sufficient interest
to pay for the difficulty. There are many un-
authenticated stories a1oat touching the origin
of the cOlors, and even of the connection of the
college with William of Orange; of these, the
following presents fewest inaccuracies, proba-
bly, arising from the fact of its being not quite
so fanciful in its nat1re as most of the others
When Belcher, Governor of the province of
New Jersey at that day, reissued the charter of
the college in 174S, he named the town and
college partly in memory of the House of Or
ange-Nassau "a Junior branch of the House of
Nassau inherited Orange) which conferred
many material benefits upon himself and his
family, and partly from purely patriotic mo-
tives, as the name of the great stakeholder had
always been associated with the cause of free
dom, and was, on that account, greatly es-
teemed and talked of at a time when the word
liberty" reused every patriot to action. The
selection of the color, orange, was then merely
a matter of analogy (dureatun,, golden) having
no connection with William of Orange
The color chosen by Cornell University has
very fanciful origin. Founded recently by
Cornell and named after its founder, the COL
lege has through it's name given birth to the
adjective Cornellian. By some odd mistake
the yearbook dropped the final in the name,
making 1t cornelian. The great similarity in
sound between Cornellian and cornelian for
carnelian. species of onyx (carneus, fleshy)
was the very evident reason which prompted
the adoption of the color carnelian by this Un-
iyersity.-Columbia College Spectator,