College Amusements. "Cocachelunk, chelunk, chelaly, Cocachelunk, chelunk, chelaly, Hi o cocachelunk che."-Lay of the Last Minstrel. "Little Boy Blue, go blow your horn!"-Mater Anser. Or all classes and conditions of men, students most need amusement. Rest restores the laboring man and the morning sun finds him fresh and strong, but the student needs something more than rest. His mind must not only from time to time be released from its confinement, but it must be permitted, nay, even compelled to run at large over the green fields and pleasant valleys which lie in sight of its prison home. Hence the necessity of recreation for the student, a need soon felt and supplied wherever a band of students collects. The arguments which call for it have their influence in determining its character, and therefore, as a general thing, College amusements are not particularly quiet or dignified. We run from Euclid to his Burial. We thrust the half-dissected corpse of a dead language back into its coffin, and shutting down the cover, blow out the light and run over to the Pow-wow.' We drown every thought of logic in Lager,' and whistle away all cares of syzi,— apo,-peri, and the thousand and one other 'gees.' We vanish from the chorus of nymphs and satyrs,' to reappear beneath the window of some fair one and roll out living choruses in a living language. ments. Amusements must be unconstrained or they will cease to be amuseOne thing, however, we must learn, and gradually are doing so; that they may be unconstrained and yet be civilized. Any one who remembers the time when Yalensians had no public amusements of their own, when the Caliathumps went drumming round the city at midnight, carrying off gates, breaking barbers' poles, changing signs and smashing windows,-when the Burial of Euclid procession was little. more than a noisy, drunken crowd, led on by the music of tin pans, broken gongs, horns, and stolen dinner-bells,-when participation in the Wooden Spoon Exhibition was a sufficient ground for expulsion,—when the signal for the 'Pow-wowers' to assemble, was a bonfire built of chairs, posts, signs, and whatever other movable combustible could be found in the vicinity of the Colleges ;--any one who recalls these facts to mind, will see at a glance how great a progress we have made towards the elevation of our amusements. We have no organized Caliathumps, and when a few drunken wights take it upon themselves to relieve a citizen of his gate, they do it quietly, both for his sake and their own. They are the mildest mannered men That ever hugged a lamp, or stole, a gate. Our Burial of Euclid processions march in order through the streets and are preceded by fine bands of music. Our Pow-wows' are conducted according to printed programmes, and are led off by the most respectable men of the Class; and the character of the audience of a modern Wooden Spoon Exhibition, is a sufficient evidence of its advance. All this has been brought about by men acting upon a common sense view of the nature and degree of our need of amusement. It is like a Republican Government. If orderly men will not take part in the elections, rowdies and bullies will, and the staid and sober citizen is suddenly struck with astonishment when he beholds the highest offices in the hands of demagogues and scoundrels. Experience has shown, and will continue to show to the end of time, that students must have amusement. 'Where there's a will, there's a way,' and hence exhibitions or sports of some kind or other will spring up among students, especially where so many are gathered together as in our own Yale. Now it is for our own interest, as well as for our credit, that these exhibitions should, at least, not be a disgrace to the College. To try to prevent this by holding back and attempting to frown them down indignantly, is simply absurd. As well might a Sunday-School teacher say to the little ragged boy in the street, Boy, your face is too dirty, I shall not have anything to do with you!" The car of progress very often runs off the track, and should men refuse to get out and assist it on again because the engineer happens to swear? No good would ever be accomplished if good men were afraid of touching anything bad. Nor should we despair of reforming anything. The filthiest soil will bear the brightest flowers. But to drop moralizing. Much has been done to this end within the last few years, but there are still a few points which need attention. In the first place, therefore, a reformation of this kind involves expense. Our word 'vile,' is derived from the Latin word 'vilis,' cheap. The transition from cheap to vile is a natural one, which it would be well to notice in this connection. It is impossible that a Pow-wow can be made respectable without some expenditure. Students will have noise. If not melodious, it will be discordant. If they don't have brass trumpets, they will have tin horns. If not drums, tin pans. Now the one of these makes music, and the other din. The one is respectable, the other rowdy. And so of the other things, lights, printing, &c. All these are necessary to give a celebration of the kind under discussion a species of dignity and respectability, yet they involve expense. We must not, therefore, expect to bring about a change of this nature without an increase of expenditure. Yet here there is danger that we shall run into extravagance, and that the reaction from that will throw the custom back to where we found it. This leads to a second remark; that such amusements should never be supported by a tax. There are often men in a Class who cannot well afford it, yet from a kind of false pride feel compelled to pay it because it is a Class tax. Especialiy is this apt to be the case in the younger Classes, whose members have not yet acquired that independence in regard to such matters, which they will in the course of their College life. Let all such performances be based upon a subscription list. Then, if there is a general desire that the custom should be carried out, the funds will be forthcoming; but if not, then it is best to let it fall through, for such a thing is like a law,-if public opinion will not sustain it, it is sheer folly to atempt to carry it out. But again; of late the disposition of the speaker seems to be, not so much to glorify his own Class in the orthodox College way, by fair argument and splurgification,' as to make it appear exalted by decrying the others. This gives rise to a great deal of ill-feeling between the Classes, and in the performance itself, causes hissing and shouting, and a general disturbance. Now this is wrong, and the speaker is, in a great measure, responsible for it. Let him be as keen and sarcastic as he wishes. but not vituperative. Billinsgate is not wit. Abuse is not funny. We listen for wit. We come expecting to hear something funny. Instruction we receive in the recitation room, advice and admonition we get in the Chapel, rhetoric and logic we find in the library, but what we wish outside is fun. Sound, healthy fun, free from everything ungentlemanly. Give us that and we will applaud. E. F. B. Presentation Dan. AMONG the rich days of College life, preeminent is Presentation Day. On that day, our Alma Mater presents to our country and the world an hundred men-all of them, her own well-nurtured sons. It is emphatically a Class day. Throughout the College world, one class is the absorbing theme of thought and conversation. It is the closing chapter in its history. The influence of its members as individuals, will be felt bereafter, but as a united body, as an organization created by circumstances, its days are numbered, and its power is laid aside for ever. But it is to each student personally, that this day has its deepest meaning. It is an epoch in his history to which Hope has led him on for years gone by, and to which Memory shall often lead him back in years to come. It marks the accomplishment of one of life's greatest and most cherished plans. The College course is traveled through. College days, flying swift as the weaver's shuttle, have woven the character he is, and wrought out the man he is to be. Is all well? Is all as it should be? Ah! the misgivings, the unavailing regrets of that day! We believe that while most would neither hasten nor delay its coming, all meet it with mingled feelings of joy and sadne:s. The |