The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1905-05-26
TAP DAY ON YALE CAMPUS.
SENIOR SOCIETIES CHOSE NEW
MEMBERS FROM JUNIOR CLASS.
Those to Receive the HOnors Are Pretty
Wen known Beforehand, hut That
DOesn't Prevent Excitement Near the
Dwarf Oak-NO Election for Sheylin.

Wen Known Beforehand, hut That
DOesn't Prevent Excitement Near the
Dwarf Oak--NO Election for Sheylin.
NEW HAVEN, May 25.-The most striking
,ha.e Of the ancient Yale day OF joy and
despair. Tap Day, as it was impressed on
Yale to-day. was tho great change in the
attitude of the college community toward
the senior society elections. 1t il still true
that the forty-fve men who are chosen out
of ,',e Junior class into the so-called Skull
and Bones Scroll and Key" and "Wolf's
Head" feel that they have reached the
pinnacle Of their collegiate ambitions.
The change in the college mosphere
i that very few except those forty-five
Young men in the junior class seem to care
At all. The crowd outside the junior class,
-,hs gallery" WAS noticeably thin. It
NAV he hard for Yale men OF older genera
tion to believe, but two thirds Of the college
community had something moro important
to do, in its own opinion, to day, than to
watch the senior elections. This state
nenr does not mean that there was less
tensity Of hope and fear, less generous
Ackno " led gment of another's victory
Tor less angry jealousy than there has been
IN former years. 1t does not mean that the
Yale senior societies are losing prestige
IN their own community.
II merely means that the undergraduate
body has grown 80 large that 1t regards
the elections much as 1t might the distribu-
ton of prizes to men OF generally conceded
merit There are so many other interests
IN college life as 1t IL to-day that the men
who do not regard themselves as candidates
interest themselves in something else more
vital TO them
Those who know where to look have
known for three weeks whore to find lists
Of those who, in the opinion of the UNDER
graduate community, deserve senior society
= elections Hundreds OF such lists are
ecraw led on more or less secluded walls,
for the awful blight OF senior ostracism,
according to tradition, falls upon one seen
writing up such list publicly.
There is very little divergence from these
prophecies in the elections. The societies
confronted with the necessity OF picking
the men who most nearly approach their
ideals out of classes OF 400 and 500 seem to
have realized that the safest way Us to follow
the estimate OF students classmates.
1t is fixed in Yale tradition that the senior
elections are announced on the last Thurs
rav in May at o'clock in the afternoon
on the Yale campus. For the last ten years
the ceremonies have conferred about dwarf
oak tree which grows just opposite the Pass
of ThermopolR, which Is between Battell
,harel and Durfee. This tree is just inside
the fence.
At half rast 4 o'clock to-day there were
fifty or hundred juniors loungng outside
oithe fence waiting hundred more young
sters sophomores, hung about the fence
further along. There was a scattering Of
seniors, not society members, OF course,
and rroupA Of thirty or forty juniors
gathered in knots on the grass in different
quarters Of the quadrangle. For all the
world like focks Of wild fowl on a pond
they rose Up and settled down agan CT
moved a hundred steps nearer the fateful
shade OF Little Oak. The windows of
D'ree and Farnam filled with spectators,
most Of them women. and fringe OF people
formed inside the fence all along its u"
shaped length.
AT quarter before there was general
rush of juniors toward the tree, and in
no time II was the care OF compact mass
Of youthful hopes and tremors. Yet only
about half Of the junior class was here.
The other half. knowing that 1t had no
chance, had chosen to demonstrate its in.
dependence by spending the afternoon
somewhere else. What, one may we'll
ask, would I've the awful event if. in mood
and elected should stay away from the
campus on Tap Day? Without rejecting
too harshly on modesty as it is developed
among the sons of Eli it Is safe to assume
that there is something in the air which
tells the most shrinking and self-deprecia.
tive of men that he is regarded as possessed
of senior society timber
Up through the Pass Of Thermopyle and
into the squirming. mass OF Juniors under
the oak tree strobe Roberts. Somebody
once described the effect OF an unexpected
appearance of a squad OF police at prize
fight by saying: A suppressed hush was
heard" The ordinary observer could not
have found anything oppressive in the
dark clothes, with gold Scroll and Key
pin flashing somewhat conspicuously in
his black lie. But the. compact crowd
part ed for him not quickly enough. so that
juniors to one side and the other, scowling
with the anxiety and intensity OF his search
for the man to whom he was to announce
a Scroll and Key election.
He was followed by three men OF VOLTS
Head. All of them went weaving through
tie j.lniors, watching the chapel clock be-
tween times. In the crowd all eyes were
turned toward the path from High street
past Dwight Hall from which the elector
q Skull and Bones might be expected to
appear, but it was not until three minutes
Of that the stocky form Of Lathrop os Skull
and Bones was made out swinging down
the gravel path toward the crowd
All eyes turned to the clock. There was
constant straining on tiptoes to see
about what juniors the seniors were hover
ing. There was a murmur Of wonder over
the presence of four Keys men and three
Molfs Head men in the crowd before the
Striking Of the hour There we're shrewdly
expressed suspicious that while 1t might
10 most undignfed for any one society to
show its eagerness to get particular junior
Nv approaching him before the set minute.
still there was no improperly in landing
Is many candidates as possible IN that
same first minute. The events gave color
To this presumption.
The first quiverng note Of the chime. was
al that any one heard OF the warning from
the tower that the clock was about to strike
FIVE. With that first note rose mighty
sound Of strong hands descending on broad
shoulders and chorus Of voices explosive
with pent up eagerness and nervousness
yelling: Go to your room"
The crowd was in a turmoil in moment.
Men leaped up in the effort to see what
va.g going n. Hundreds of voices shrieked,
Who are they?' who was it?" Give
up the name'.'
In the middle of the close packed mob
there was a scene which will live in under
Nj H. H..