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
a senior society is Yale's 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