The daily morning journal and courier., 1896-02-03

Wholesome Tone of University Aife and
 Causes-Moral Influence of Yaie-Bo-
 hemian Life and It's Harmless Jollity.
 Cor. New York Tribune0
 The anxiety that has for some time been expressing some of the more sober minded public in regard to the moral influence of Yale, has it's origin largely in failure to grasp the Yale mans moral makeup. He is a creature of contradictions, in whom gaiety and goodness, real feeling and misleading expression, walk arm in arm in most bewildering fashion, and needs careful, sympathetic study to weigh him justly Not that every man at Yale deserves the confidence of the outside world. It would indeed border upon the miracu- lous if among the 2,500 men who throng the university there were not an appre- ciable number of black sheep. The public do not, however, look down upon these black sheep with more pity and contempt than do the strong, pure, steadfast men, who give to the college it's tone and constitute the overwhelm- ing majority It does not make man popular among his fellows to be a rep rebate. Although he may come to New Haven laboring under the impression that little dissipation will be his best card of entry to college high life, ne does not have to be here long to become thoroughly ashamed of the spectacle he has made os himself in the eyes of the very men whose favor he wished to se- cure; and by the senior year, if he has not lived down his first demonstration, 1t is not, as a rule, because he has not tried to. * There is no human creature, no sweat-laborer harder worked than a Yale boy. Not by the faculty, heaven forfend! They are ten der hearted men, as a class, and fathers of families The Yale boy of to-day piles arduous pleasure upon work until the twenty-four hours are not long enough to hold him and his achieve ments. There are his regular duties, those for which he presumably came to college As rule he is earnest and in- terested in these. A prominent profess sor said lately that the proof of this lay in the elective courses. There was rarely man who did not choose the subjects which interested him most, or those which would be of most use to him in after life, regardless of his per- sonal ease. There are. of course. excep- ticns. The impression having gained ground, for instance, that the study of the Pauline Epistles. under the presi- dent did not make such inroads upon a mans time as the more secular branches Of learning, the course be- came immediately a popular one with the fastest men in college. certain particularly gay young fellow, think ing to make life doubfy easy, chose general Biblical research in addition to the Epistles. To his own dismay, how ever, and to the infinite delectation of his fellows, the preceptors scenting pos sibly, something peculiar in the situa- tion, worked him so hard that he had absolutely no time left from his research of the Scriptures for more congenial occupations.
 Few men, however, at Yale are in a financial situation to afford such trif- ling. Despite it's reputation as a rich mans college, the proverbial rich mans son weltering in his fathers gold to his own and his classmates destruction is, like the bogie in the nursery tale, more often heard of than met with in actual life. Much more numerous, in reality, are the men with ejudicious, comfort able allowances, or upon none at all, to whom being at college means so much in the way of hard work and self-denial that they are not likely to forget what they came for or by the force of their example to let others for get it. When one adds to this legiti- mate work the all-engrossing pursuit of athletics, clubs and editorial boards and societies, secret and otherwise, ad inflnitum, it is difficult to see how a Yale boy could find time to keep up any degree of intimacy with the friends to whom his parents commended him.