The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1901-06-19
YALE WAYS.
Observations Thereon by a Friendly
Outsider

Outsider.
Yale is a university with remarka BILE
peculiarities. 1t is very much respect
ed, yet persons who have watched it
afar off for long periods of time find
themselves perennially astonished by
Yale ways. If Yale, like West Point,
We're under the control of congress, it
is hard to doubt that it would be inves-
tigated annually. Imagine the con-
gressional orators declaiming upon the
enormites of the Yale society system.
Imagine the congressional Investigators
examining witnesses to find out by
what principle of selection the various
Yale societies maintained their mem
bership! What, oh, what would con-
grass say to the curious process by
which in night in May, every year,
Yale gives notice to the attentive earth
that forty-fve young men have become
members of her senior societies, and
that six times as many other eligibles
1 remain available for other uses? Very
odd organizations are those three
senior societies, with their enormous
| local prestige their windowless halls,
and the deep, saturating atmosphere
of mystery in which they dwell. There
are dreadful complaints about them
every year. The charge is made that
they are destructive to Yale democracy,
that their method of announcing their
elections is unnecessarily cruel and
that they leave out men whom they
ought to take in. and take in men
whom they ought to leave out. This
last annual contention is the most Sc
10 tolynF In
fifteen men each out of classes which
now average about 300 The sentiment
Of the college seems to be that If the
societies take the forty-tive best men
in the class there is nothing to COM
plain of. The annual complaint Is
based on the opinion of the complain
ants that the chosen forty-f1ye include
too large a proportion Of individuals
whose preferment was not earned.
This year the omission Of the captain
made great public scandal, and the
college expressed it's sentiment about it
by terrific cheering on election night
for the omitted Mr.. Gould. If Yale
were under government supervision
Mr. Gould's case would undoubtedly
receive attention from congress.
Then there Is the matter of Yale
cheering. Yale seems able to butcher
any other college in the country. 1t is
a regular Yale practice to butcher the
other side at games, and to win games,
If possible, by sheer righteousness
even when the other side has the better
team. Cheering is recognized branch
of Yale athletics and it is believed that
men are trained to excel in it, There
dol
on June 1-when Yale played baseball |
with Princeton. The game was played |
on the Yale field. When Yale went to |
bat in the last half of the ninth inning,
she had three runs to Princeton's eight.
1t was Princeton's game by all rules of |
or reasonable expectation. |
But the Yale men went to the hat to |
the tuns of fifty-four Yale cheers, |
which seem to have continued to the |
close of the game. The upshot of it |
was that Princeton was hypnotized and |
couldn't play, and that Yale made six |
runs and won the game. 1t was not |
baseball, but 1t was a very interesting |
Of Yale desperation 1t
looks little as If teams that play Yale |
would have to fail back on strategy, |
and borrow the device by which Ulys- /
SEES got his crew past the Sirens. Bos-
ton opinion, as expressed in the Tran
script" is that 1t is unsportsmanlike
to win baseball games by yelling.
Maybe so. 1t is clearly a matter that
ought to go before arbitrator; but it
never will, because Yale is aself-regu-
ating concern, and here's hoping that |
she may so continue, for, like Artemus |
D1.fliG liz yNern, 1tA L., fN,,~, -.
and the college circus would be a good Il
ieal duller show If her peculiaritles 4
we're eliminated.
Yale has invited twenty five Harvard
undergraduates to attend the exercises
~ which she intends to celebrate her
'00th anniversary next fall. These un-
are to be selected by the
Harvard authorities, and the basis on
which the selection will be made is an II
interesting subject of speculation. Per-
laps the John Harvard scholars will be
included in the delega ton. Perhaph
he Harvard government will invite the
to choose their own
representatives. 1t will be an unprece-
Tented chance to study Yale, inspect Il
Ter shell, admire her great men, meet III
Ter undergraduates, and scrutniZe the
utside of her remarkable social tenn
lies. And that suggests that one of
he weak points of the Yale senior So
leties is the system by which they cut
themselves off from the privilege of
howing hospitality to visitors to New
1aven. 1t is surprising that their
MEMBERS have so long endured so need
ess and CALLING deprivation.--E. s.
1artin in Harper's Weekly.