The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1906-03-04
TEE DRAMA OF COLLEGE LIFE.
WHY 1T NEVER CAN BE-AND
WHAT 1T ACTUALLY IS.


widow" and "stF onSheart"-"Charley's
Aunt' and AIT Heidelberg" Contrast.
Five years ago / would have undertaken
for an inoonsiderable sum to explain why
1t was that there could be no such thing
as the drama Of college life. With the
production OF Brown Of Harvard" last
Monday night, It became evident not only
that there Is a drama Of college life chat
has long been known) but that there Is he
drama OF college life-a widely prevalent
theatfio convention, like tank melodrama,
horse melodrama, motor melodrama,
mother melodrama, b'gosh melodrama and
Belasoo melodrama. 1t is more h a
convention, in fact. It is what the pro-
fessors OF literary history call a myth--a
collection Of more or less fixed ooncep-
lions which are distinct from any actual
fact but which stand In the public mind
for truth and nothing but the truth,
and which are so generally recognized
that any one Is able TO dish them up to the
general taete-even q pretty young person
In fluffy skirts, as In the present instance.
With the studious side Of undergraduate
life this myth Of the college drama has
nothing TO do, unless to make a bold, bad
mock Of it. The central interest Is some
intercollegiate athletic contest-football for
choice; but when that has been overworked
rowing will do. The hero, o~ftcourse, Is an
athlete OF stupendous powers, and he is In
love with the local beauty. The great"
scene Of the play centres in an actual ath-
letic contest, which the audience sees
through the eyes Of appreciated cast,
peering into the ~baokdrop and wildly ges-
ticulating AS il it had not itself paid the
full price'o admission The curtain rings
down with the spectacle Of the hero borne
aloft on the shoulders OF his comrades and
acclaimed as the great and only victor Of
the day-paving the way for the conquest
OF the lady OF his heart in the last act.
And yet, in spite OF this convention
founded on a myth, l am still prepared to
assert that there cannot be, is not and
never will be, any such thing as the drama
of college life. One man, the author Of
The College Widow" has come near up
setting this thesis, but in his heart he
knows that he has not done SO, and canno
do 80. On the first night Of his play here
Mr.. AIDE said: Il have tried to present
the college man, not as a tin god nor as a
joke, but as a human being. He may
not deserve it, but" And here Mr..
AIDE lodged behind the leg of the proscen-
ium arch. That but of his has got to be
lodged by every author of the drama of
college life, whether he knows it or not.
This myth dramatic began, to the best Of
my knowledge and belief, with one Of the
great and glorious John L. Sullivan's We
hicles-a water wagon hitched to a star,
as 1t were, the name of which was Capt.
Harcourt.' saw it in Boston with a bunch
of undergraduates, at what was then known
as de Howard At'ane m. Like any well
conducted product of the mythopoetic in
stinct, you see, this is popular in its origin.
Cdptdfn Hdrcourt was Of the United
States Army, and was the friend Of a great
football man, de cap'n of de Yales. Now
de Yales stood to win. But a dreadful thing
happened. De cap'n of de Hayvards put
poison in his soup. Being in training. Of
course, he never ought to have eaten soup;
and having don SO, it was only poetic
justice that he should have fall ! into it.
But these are minor %verities, the likes Of
which no self respecting myth takes note Of.
De cap'n of de Yales was poisoned, and de
cap'n of de Hayvards was responsible.
You seen him when he done it. Now it
looked bad for de Yales. But in the nick
of time, there was Captain Hdrcourt on the
spot. He said to the fainting cap'n of de
Yales: ~Nivver we moind. I'll win yer
for vel" OF course there are eligi-
bility rules. but again the nascent myth
rode triumphant over minor v~erities. Cap
tain Hdrcourt took of the coat Of his uni-
form, and clad in a waistcoat with brass
buttons, he seized the pigskin in his W
five fingers. Now, in the earlier days OF
the myth, the great" scene was open and
visible. At de Howard At'aneum you
can't do the audience out of its moneys
worth. The Thanksgiving football gams
place in the back yard of the Yale
captains houg e. So all Hdrcourt had to do
was to take-the pigskin in one hand and the
de Hayvards in the other, and
push them of the stage among the wings.
AS the Indians on Santo Domingo threw
up their hands at the sight of Columbus,
and said; There's nc help for it, we are dis
covered, so de Hayvards vanished out of
the Yale captains back yard, quitters every
one of them, after a single touchdown
against them.
Meantime the stomach pump had been
applied TO the midst of de Cap'n Of de Yalos,
and at the curtain he stood in the centre of
the lawn, with one hand clasping Captain
Hdrcourt's right and the other on his shoul-
der, pale but triumphant. In the following
act, it may be noted, it TRANSFERRED that
deception had been practised on the audi
Captain ,RdrcouTt was not Captain
but John l.. Sullivan; and, un-
by his single handed victory over
de Hayvards, he consented to spar al eS-
match with Va local exponent of
the mits, Paddy Duffy | think it was.
Another play deserves to rank with this
as progenitor of the myth Of the college
drama, in which James j. Corbett appeared
pals" | think it was called, though here
/ speak in ignorance and under correction.
The hero was a budding millionaire and
giant of the gridiron, and was so far removed
from snobbishness and the training table that
he lived in n boarding house in which there
was champagne on the sideboard. The hero
inc was the landlady's daughter. and, as
one learned while she brushed the cham
pagne with a feather buster, she was in an
interesting condition, or, as Goldsmith might
he va eNrIeSeed il. was n lovely woman who