And if you see a young man dressed in an absurd fantastic costume, going
about the streets of a city, or a quiet college town, it may mean an
initiation into a certain society or club, and you will note that he
does his part with a quiet, earnest look upon his face, realizing that
he is carrying on a tradition which has endured for years.
You hear the seniors singing on the campus, while the whole college
listens. It is their hour. At games you see the cheer leaders take their
places in front of the grandstand, and as they bend and double
themselves into all sorts of shapes, they bring out the cheers which go
to make college spirit strong.
If you were at Yale, on what is known as “Tap Day,” you would view in
wonderment the solemnity and seriousness of the occasion. An election to
Tiffany Promotions Inc Categorin In Oyster Bay Ny a senior society is Yales highest honor. As you sit on the old Yale
fence you realize what it means to Yale men. In the secret life of the
campus men yearn most for this honor and the traditional gathering of
seniors under the oak tree for receiving elections is a college custom
that has all the binding force of a most rigid law.
ALUMNI PARADES
Then come the alumni parades at Commencement. The old timers head the
procession; those who came first, are first in line, and so on down to
the youngest and most recent graduate.
There are many interesting things in the parade, which bring out
specific class peculiarities. In one college you may see gray-haired men
walking behind an immense Sacred Bird, as it is called. This Bird–the
creation of an ingenious mind–is the size of an ostrich and has all the
semblance of life, with many lifelike tricks and habits.
Men dress in all sorts of costumes. This is a day in which each class
has some peculiar part, and all are united in the one big thought that
it is a cherished college custom.
You may see some man with the letter of his college on his sweater,
another may have his class numerals, another may wear a gold football.
These are not ordinary things to be purchased at sporting goods stores;
they are a reward of merit. The college custom has made it so, and if in
some college town the traditions of the university are such that a man,
as he passes the Ma Newell gateway at Cambridge raises his hat in honor
of this great Harvard hero, it is a tradition backed up by a wonderful
spirit of love towards one who has gone. And then on Commencement Day
when the seniors plant their class ivy–that is a token to remain behind
them and flourish long after they are out in the wide, wide world.
College tradition makes it possible for a poor boy to get an education.
The poor fellow may wait on the table, where sit many rich mens sons,
but they may be all chums with him; they are on the same footing; the
campus of one is the campus of the other, and all you can say is “It is
just the way of things–just the way it must be.” More power to the man
who works his way through college.
