individuals, the true purpose of College will be reëstablished, and the standard of our intelligence and understanding in actual life, inconceivably raised. Then shall we, thus armed, find a chord in each heart responsive to that universal command, "In the world's broad field of Battle, In the bivouac of Life, Be not like dumb, driven cattle! Be a hero in the strife." R. S. Class Distinctions. THE System of class distinctions incorporated into the social life of Yale is signally healthful in its influence. Some, however, overlooking its tendencies as a whole and grasping isolated defects, have deemed it liable to foster envy and prejudice, to disparage genuine talent, and to destroy the highest community of aims and interests throughout the College world. Class distinctions, indeed, have been deplored by them as an evil and stigmatized as a disgrace. This view of the subject, although perhaps not wholly unwarranted, must still appear erroneous, upon a candid consideration of the facts involved. Before proceeding, however, to notice the advantages of the system, we propose to glance briefly at the leading causes which operate to produce and support it among us. The first of these is seen at once in the comparative size of the classes at Yale. While smaller institutions number the undergraduates of each year by twos and threes, our own University reckons the members of each class by tens and twenties. This circumstance opposes an effectual barrier to the formation of mutual intimacies throughout the entire body of students. Whereas one might hope, in a less crowded College, to secure the friendship of nearly all, whose tastes and sympathies were congenial with his own, he is here debarred from proposing to himself a similar project by its formidable magnitude. There is a physical impossibility in any one's acquiring firm, earnest friendships with five hundred men, under the 25* VOL. XXVI. limited opportunities for mutual intercourse and the decided drawbacks to outside influences, which the curriculum of Yale necessitates in the members of all her classes. Hence each class, driven to self-refuge! becomes, of necessity, in a greater or less degree, distinct, isolated and exclusive. Class societies also are instrumental in promoting the same spirit. This is manifest, not simply from the nature and constitution, but also from the immediate workings and influence of these organizations. Associating in the closest intimacies and strongest ties, men whose daily pursuits and interests are identical, secret societies can not fail, when confined as here to different years of the course, to unite a class in manly independence and individuality. Such fraternities become themselves a strong link in the chain of class attachments. They awaken in their members zeal, pride, and enthusiasm. These traits in turn react upon the class character and render it spirited and self-reliant. In their remote influence they give to a class compactness and unity, enlarge its energy and liberality, and uplift it at last, into a broad self-nurturing exclusiveness. But our system of class distinctions owes its vitality likewise, in no trifling measure, to the presence of many other preeminently class usages and institutions. The Freshman Pow Wow, with all its absurd tinselry and grotesque extravagance, its motley blendings of buffoonery and wit, its glare of torches, and roar of horns, its pretentious aspirations to a dignified Sophomoreism, is yet a class institution, and as such enlists the sympathies of the whole body and isolates them, by essential lines of boundary, from the rest of College. While too the tedious severities, protracted toils, and common hazards of Biennial develop a new sense of mutual relationship and inter-dependence in a band, connected for two years past by daily links of union, it is reserved for the Jubilee, with its welcome release from anxiety, its joyous outbursts of convivial feeling, and its spontaneous recognition of generous fellowship, to rivet and consolidate a distinctive class sociality. The same influence stamps itself, yet more vividly, upon the festive and time-honored carnival of the "Spoon." It is a curious feature also in Yalensian institutions, that clubs, whether formed to promote music, exercise, or dietetics, are colored by the one dominant principle of class separateness and personality. All usages and social adaptations of the University combine to call forth and perpetuate this unique result. We come now to consider some of the more palpable benefits flowing from the state of things just reviewed. Foremost among these stands class-rivalries. By this phrase we mean, not a soulless, mean-spirited, heart-consuming jealousy, embit tering the pursuits and common relations of the different classes, but rather an ardent, honorable emulation, in all departments of effort and culture, which can afford an arena for competition. Class distinctions awaken, in Freshman and Senior both, a feeling of pride and independence. This merges soon into solicitude for the class honor and reputation, into loyalty to the class interests, and into active endeavors to uplift the class dignity to the highest position attainable. Class position is, and must be, relative in its nature. Thus a healthful and often unconscious rivalry is always shaping and invigorating the acts of our classes, till, by its reflex influence, it elevates and vitalizes at once the successful and beaten contestants. Such an emulation will sometimes deter a class, when other arguments have failed, from sanctioning schemes of folly or projecting acts of injustice. It is through a rivalry like this that class distinctions heighten the standard of class character. An agency is thus set in operation, which, looking beyond a merely partial, precarious, superficial training, rears the class intellect, by slow ascents, to growths of symmetry and vigor. Its subtle workings are no less potent because unseen and noiseless. As the ripened scholar, contending on the broad arena of letters, feels his every faculty quickened and intensified by the sharp encounter of mind with mind, and, though vanquished, always retires a gainer from the struggle, so every Yalensian class, in its lively emulation, which, with each successive day and hour, stamps a deeper impress on all sections of the College world, is thrilled and vitalized through the utmost scope of its culture. The silent contest confirms and exalts class principle. Such generous rivalries are at once the fruit of class distinctions and the pledge of class renown. They serve as the harbinger of a proud class history. But another outgrowth of the system before us now becomes apparent in class friendships. Class distinctions tend directly to deepen and consecrate class intimacies. An outshoot so obvious scarcely needs to be mentioned. It would be strange indeed if a class, when parted from higher grades of Studentdom, by boundaries which usage has rendered fixed and impassable, but which seemingly isolate it from many sources of improvement and pleasure; it would be strange indeed, we say, if a class thus insulated, at the very outset of their scholastic course did not glean profit and inspiration from an instinctive knitting together of hearts glowing with impulse and enthusiasm. The feeling thus called into life, growing daily in earnestness and depth, as mutual aims and occupations combine to expand it, ere long becomes a dominant passion of the class-nature. However valueless to degrade or exalt true merit, these artificial distinctions of class have a significance, in that they lead men to seek friendships among those, whose claim to the relation has been fully and satisfactorily tested. Thus they ensure, by the very manner of their formation, their own genuineness and perpetuity. In such close and ardent fellowships between individual classmates, we discover the germ of that heartfelt devoted love for the class itself, which is embodied in honorable class-spirit. The very familiarity, which marks the mutual connections and intercourse of the members composing a single class;-a familiarity which class distinctions forbid outside its limits;-is itself the best promoter of a well grounded cordial congeniality in friendship. While ardent intimacies are thus formed, at times with an appearance of injudicious haste, they are nevertheless rarely wanting in fidelity and permanence. It is the glory of class exclusiveness that it concentrates and energizes friendships between its members. It sows the seed that ripens into a bounteous harvest of fraternal sympathy and affection, and crowns the class with garlands of unity and fellowship. So too class distinctions will be found, once more, to add meaning and vitality to the whole range of College associations. No where can be seen or imagined a sincerer allegiance to the University than at Yale. The common reverence and enthusiasm of numberless alumni for their Alma Mater, widened by literary honors and triumphs, are blended in us, with an ardent, ever-expanding love for the institution whose privileges we prize and whose memories we shall always cherish. It is the special prerogative of class distinctions to promote this grand result. In every phase of College experience, in every sphere of College duties, in every province of College festivity and fellowship the paramount benefits of the system are distinctly traceable. As a class, ruled and adorned by this principle, grows compacted in self-reliance and manliness, it is slowly constructing a grand fraternization to encompass the future as well as the present of the University. The purer each class-friendship, the more passionate each class attachment has been, so much the stronger and more lasting must be the collected devotion which is to perpetuate the fond associations of all student life. It is through the agency of class distinctions, indeed, that every scene entwined with Yale is to be vivified and illumined in the chambers of memory after the lapse of years. Here we shall recall the joyous intimacies of college life with feelings of grateful pleasure and heightened intensity. It is not simply in a class, viewed as a separate entity but as an integral and constituent portion of College, that the glow and pride of class enthusiasm is created and kept alive. The old class pastimes and joys, sometimes marred, it is true, by jealousies and strife, but oftener quickened by mutual intimacies and a generous emulation, will owe the value of their remembrance preeminently to the sundering lines, which gave the class identity and character. There is the most intimate connection subsisting between the usages that are interwoven into the class life, the modes of thought and conversation that lent it tone and temper, the partings and bereavements that color the past or future history, and the wider, more exalted conception of College Duty and College Life, which must always attend them. Thus the dearest associations of Yale are assigned a definite shape and locality. The fraternal alliance of congenial hearts, cemented by class spirit and class distinctions, culminates in hallowing the earnest memories of Yalensian life. Here we leave the subject. Enough has been said, we think, to show that class distinctions are the spring of honorable class rivalries and class activity, that they tend to foster lasting class intimacies, that they widen the significance of College associations, and enter as a recognized power into the College world, strengthening, with the passing years, the attachment, devotion, and loyalty of every student to his honored Alma Mater. J. P. T. Under the Pines. A ruddy glory crowns the west; The sunlight lies in dimmer lines, In dark robed presence waiting near, She comes to meet me through the trees; |