undergraduate club, with smoking and billiard rooms, and restaurant attached, was yet an undreamed dream of the far future. True, there was, at the beginning of the epoch alluded to, a place of daily though hardly popular resort, managed entirely by students, anything but exclusive in character, for its name was-Commons! But if tradition is not misleading on this point, or unless the said institution has degenerated very rapidly of late years, the frugal cheer of that ancient establishment was not such as to induce its patrons to linger long about the festive board. The venerable open debating societies, Linonia and Brothers, were then in a transition period. The loss of good fellowship, engendered by their frequent theatricals, finally prohibited by an edict of the faculty, had not yet been atoned for by the establishment of grand tourneys of debate, nor had the noisy strife for the largest membership, characteristic of their later days, begun to hold full sway. Of course real society pride was not to be fostered where membership in either society was placed wholly at the option of every unproved Freshman. Nor was devotion to society interests expected except in so far as it would promote selfish ends or consume idle moments.

The tendency, therefore, for men of congenial tastes and similar habits to form themselves into small groups for wider and more positive culture, than they could otherwise obtain in the Yale College of those days, and, also, for the cementing of intimate friendships, was both natural and altogether praiseworthy. That these small groups should be kept strictly within class lines, was wholly in accord with the traditions and character of the College. Following the ceremonious etiquette in vogue in the English Universities at a corresponding period, our oldest Eastern Colleges enjoined many tokens of respect upon the new comers towards those whose residence among the classic shades was of greater standing. The years are recorded when in those institutions the Freshmen became hewers of wood and drawers of water for the Seniors, to say nothing of their attending to the tutors' coal-though this was sometimes put through the window instead of coming in by the door! Yale, the most conservative of the large colleges, has always been noted for preserving these class distinctions.

Long ago her students learned not only to endure cheerfully, but to glory in class feeling. In the early days of the societies there were no optional" studies which brought together students from different classes. All classmates studied the same portion of the curriculum at the same time, underwent the same "polishing" process at the hands of the faculty-and the other classes! hence always became devotedly attached to the leaders of their own class, intellectually, socially, and physically. Given these conditions, it followed almost inevitably that if there were to be secret societies at Yale, they would be class societies.

The theory of the system is equally clear and no less reasonable. The Freshman societies flung wide open their doors to every Verdant Green who chose to knock at them; or rather, unless he had been pledged and instructed beforehand, he was hustled through those doors at a very lively rate, on recommendation of the Scylla or Charybdis delegation of Sophomores -whichever had happened to meet him first-on his advent into the old New Haven R. R. Hades. The one and only useful feature of the Freshman societies was that they made men acquainted with each other early in the course. Recommendation to a Sophomore society was mainly of a social character. Cards and theatricals gave the lighter element of a class a chance to have its day, or rather its nights. In Junior year when the discipline of the curriculum had begun to tell and men's abilities were recognized at their true worth, these conditions were reversed. The Junior societies aspired to, even if they did not always attain, scholarship and literary work of a high order. The Senior societies became the necessary and logical climax to the others, recognizing friendships, which had been formed, perhaps, in Freshman year, appreciating the sociability displayed in the Sophomore societies, looking critically though justly at the literary work of Junior year, seeking to mingle in fair proportion in their membership all of these elements without slighting any one of them. So that viewed from the vantage-ground of historical knowledge this same system, which has often been called "hopelessly confused and purposeless," is seen to be at once simpler and fairer to all conditions of men, and likely to prove more lasting than

those in vogue at any other colleges. In most of these colleges men are "rushed" into general, all-class "fraternities" early in Freshman year, before they can possibly be acquainted from personal experience-the only satisfactory test-with the connections and friendships they are thus pledging themselves to for a life-time. But many men in each class, perhaps the majority of them, who would like to do so, are never asked to join any fraternity. At Yale, no man is or was, when the Freshman societies were in existence, refused a chance to demonstrate his society qualifications. Neither was any one asked to take a more honorable seat until he did make that demonstration. To reach the final goal was not a matter of one month or one year, but of three years' open, honorable competition, with many men, of many kinds.

Undoubtedly there are some valid objections to any customs which magnify class distinctions. Where embryonic bullyism exists among the Sophomores, for instance, this nuisance may sometimes be hatched into vigorous being by mistaken class enthusiasm. At all first-class Eastern colleges, however, the old obnoxious forms of hazing have dug their own graves and will soon cease to be regarded as bugbears by the most timid of faculties. By not "running" with cronies in other classes the "hail fellow! well-met" element may lose some opportunities for the noisier kind of sociability. Likewise, a few of the best intellects in a class may occasionally feel themselves hampered in confining their close friendships to class lines. To read some of the criticisms which have been made, it might be supposed that to go beyond those boundaries a hair's breadth constituted a criminal offense. This is of course nonsense. Very strong affinities will find themselves out under all circumstances; especially is this true with the friendships of young men. The worst that class feeling can do, is to frown at too great a display of friendship, in public, between men of different classes, as in bad taste because calculated to reflect slightingly on the classmates of one or both friends. In other words, a reasonable, if not liberal view of the question is, that where classes range from one hundred and fifty to two hundred liberally educated young men, any one such body furnishes every opportunity for legitimate friendships to flourish;

that in fact they will there perfect themselves to a degree under any other circumstances impossible. To value one another through life men must be welded together by some such process. Often to the worldly man the name classmate is a magic spell, softening the impulses, leading back the imagination to scenes of youthful buoyancy and high resolve.

We have dwelt upon class-feeling because writing from the conviction that the present societies cannot, as has so often and so glibly been suggested by outsiders, be modified so as to include men from several classes at the same time. All attempts to do so at Yale have hitherto failed ignominiously. The oldest Junior society after an honorable career of more than a quarter of a century, waned and died in opposing college opinion on this point of admitting Sophomores and Freshmen. The presence of Sophomores at Freshmen societies was their bête noir. The Juniors contributed much more than the Sophomores themselves to the riotous proceedings which broke up those societies. The presence of many Seniors at the Junior societies, except on extra occasions, is regarded as rather a nuisance. Unless the Junior buildings were greatly enlarged, at much expense, they could not possibly accommodate a quota from several classes, unless the representation from each was made so small as to omit at least half of the available material. This reasoning is negatived in the case of smaller colleges without much class-feeling.

The critics of the Yale society system, differing with the faculty, have invariably ignored the Juniors' societies while laying much stress upon the Seniors'. Presumably, therefore, in their opinion, the former are satisfactory and in no need of reforming. From the charge that the Senior societies dominate and have muzzled the college press, an extra-college reader would infer that all the editors are society men. As a matter of fact on all the college press proper (i. e., excepting the Yale Literary Magazine, which, as its name implies, pays little or no attention to current topics) the non-Senior society men always greatly outnumber the elect. Only a half dozen of the two score or more of editors appointed annually are chosen as society representatives, and then never until they have won their position by fair competition and long apprenticeship as

contributors. The reason that the editors are appointed instead of elected by the class is that this was found by practical experience to be the only way of keeping up the literary standard of the college press. Formerly mere personal popularity put men into these very responsible positions. Certainly no one looking over files of the Yale papers since this change has been made can complain that the new régime has not been steady and true to its cause. The society men have never striven to establish an organ of their own. The society abolitionists-more correctly, two or three of the most radical of them have tried, this experiment, during intervals of several years, and it has always ended in flat failure. Many men have complained because they thought newspapers had done injustice to them or their hobbies. It remains for the society abolitionists to feel injured because the college press never alludes in any way to the subject of societies. A moment's serious reflection will convince the most skeptical that this is the only course not sure to be fraught with constant vexation, without the slightest compensating gain, to all parties concerned. The society men differ among themselves, and to pre serve a constant equilibrium between the three or more factions, if general society discussions were allowed to overload the columns of college news-papers-as was the case a few years ago, much to everybody's disgust-would be simply an impossibility. The leading New Haven journals have regular departments for daily college news, contributed by college men, usually "neutrals"; and unlimited space would be granted them to ventilate any real wrongs of which the societies were guilty.

So far as we are aware only one opponent of the society system has had the hardihood to affirm, "the evil worms itself into our religious life, it introduces friction into our religious development," . e., by estranging from their classmates the "deacons" who are society men. If substantiated by a single fact this ought to be regarded as a very serious charge against the societies. But coming merely as an anonymous and unauthenticated assertion, in the N. Y. Nation, it may be dismissed with the remark that between the supposition that men of the character of class deacons would become "estranged" from