Pomp

Out of trunks and closets and hoodmakers' shops, last week, came bright regalia. There was brushing of gowns and pressing of hems, dusting of tassels and fitting on of mortarboards. When U. S. pedagogy, its apostles, disciples and the honored stranger within its gates, takes the platform, this month, to set seals and make distinctions, how shall the colors of its pomp be read?

The flopping, swishing, blinding, neck-tickling cap-tassel that is meant to depend over the left temple is uniformly black for bachelors and masters, golden for doctors.

Each faculty is designated by the color of the hood:

White is for Arts and Letters, reminiscent of the ermine of Oxford and Cambridge.

Scarlet, the token of Theology and Divinity, is the Church's hue for ardent love and zeal.

Purple of Law is the royal color of a king's court whence law descended.

Green is for the herbs of Medicine.

Blue is Philosophy, its truth and wisdom.

Brown is Fine Arts, from the leather jerkin or apron of a guild artisan.

Yellow for Science glows like the gold of its discoveries.

Pink, worn by doctors of music, was prescribed (in brocade) at Oxford.

The olive of Pharmacy, lilac of Dentistry, russet of Forestry, gray of Veterinary Science, lemon of Library Science, light blue of Pedagogy, drab of Commerce and Accountancy, sage of Physical Education, salmon of Public Health, orange of Engineering, silver of Oratory, maize of Agriculture and copper of Economics appear to be arbitrary selections for degrees more recently instituted.

As they settle into their chairs, visiting notables may be picked out by colored stripes and chevrons on their hoods. A lady with maize and white chevron is from Bryn Mawr. Cornellians wear carnelian and two white chevrons. Olive and blue is Tulane; gold silk and blue, the University of California; brown and blue, Tufts.

It is anomalous that the pedagogs now swelter on hot June days in gowns that their clerical predecessors wore for warmth in the chill Middle Ages. Down the back of the agnostic philosopher hangs a cowl that the friar invented to warm his ears after paternosters.

P. B. K.

At the College of William and Mary (Williamsburg, Va.), one of the earliest repositories of higher learning in the U. S.,* they laid a cornerstone. The ground had waited 149 years for a memorial to the founders of Phi Beta Kappa, honorary hierarchy of scholarship. From all points came distinguished collegians. Dr. Charles F. Thwing, President Emeritus of Western Reserve University, and President of the United Chapters of P. B. K., was in the chair. Sir John Asser, Governor of Bermuda, became an honorary member.

The distinguished will go to William and Mary again next year when the building--a three-arched brick edifice with an auditorium, guest rooms and a fireproof chamber for P. B. K. memorabilia--is dedicated on the 150th anniversary of P. B. K.'s founding.

In the beginning, there were 50 youths, mostly Virginians, mostly in their teens. Their ideals were educational, patriotic, fraternal. For years their chapters, which soon spread to Harvard, Yale and elsewhere, were kept secret. Now there are over 40,000 living members of the fraternity, the ranking 10% of scholars in many a graduating class. More than a hundred institutions conduct chapters. Nearly a year ago, a corporate form was obtained for the body national in a charter from the Regents of the University of the State of New York.

In Florida

Miami, Florida, the hotel town, the real-estate-boom town, the Nassau bootleggers' town, the rich Northerners' villa town, decided to have a $15,000,000 University of Miami. Among the incorporators so deciding were Realtor William Jennings Bryan, his daughter Ruth Bryan, James M. Cox, onetime (1913-15, 1917-21) Governor of Ohio. Last week, the incorporators announced their decision, at the same time revealing that they had offered the presidency to Dr. William Lyon Phelps, teacher of English at Yale for 33 years, Lampson professor there since 1901.

Dr. Phelps was not attracted. It may have been the climate that did not appeal to him. It may have been the people. It may have been Realtor Bryan's dismally backward, widely advertised views on education. In any case, Dr. Phelps refused. Said he: "I should be very much tempted by this offer, which I regard as a great honor, if I had not made up my mind to live and die at Yale."

College-To-Be

A town called Lubbock lies on the plains of northwest Texas like a handfull of dice on a dense floor. In Lubbock, if you are young and thinking about going on to college after high school, you look off over the flat world and wonder what it would be like down at the University of Texas or at Samuel Huston College, in Austin, about 350 miles away; or if you could ever get to Baylor, the big Baptist school, at Waco, or Wiley University at Marshall, or Austin University at Sherman. Texas is a mighty big state. From Lubbock to any one of those universities would take half a day on a train. Far from home, expensive, uncertain.

But, lately, some more dice have been added to the collection that is Lubbock. The State gave a million dollars and the Lubbockers contributed (at low prices) some 2,000 acres of prairie, and the new dice--designed after the old Spanish missions--are for a college. "The-College-That-Is-To-Be", its first President calls it, as if he were trans lating an Indian name.

The President is Dr. Paul Whitfield Horn. He has heard about advertising and slogans. Last week, sending out some publicity about the September opening (to freshmen and sophomores) of The-College-That-Is-To-Be, he drew attention to some "Hornheresys" -- that is, his policies for the college:

There will be no Greek Letter fraternities, no hazing of freshmen. "The real trouble is not that the freshman is paddled, but that he is paddled because he is a freshman. ... Is it possible to have a college for American youths of such a nature that no clear-cut social lines will be drawn between the fresh men and the upperclassmen?"

No one will be summarily expelled for poor scholarship; the common practice of dismissing about a third of a freshman class as "hopeless failures" was declared "indefensible and well-nigh criminal."

The faculty will be composed of "manly men and womanly women, above pettiness, strife and jealousy, gifted . . ."

Above all, "it should be the policy of a college in a democracy not to build a fence around it in order to keep out folks who want to enter, but rather to build steps up to it in order that those may enter who desire to do so and can profit by doing so."

Davison Scholars

Twenty-three years ago, Cecil John Rhodes established 96 scholarships (two for each state in the U. S.) at Oxford for U. S. students (TIME, Dec. 22). Some two years ago, Mrs. Henry P. Davison of Manhattan established six scholarships, two each at Yale, Harvard and Princeton, for students from Oxford and Cambridge. At Oxford, Rhodes scholars have lately taken the Newdigate poetry prize (McDuffee of Dartmouth), run great races against Cambridge (Stevenson of Princeton), played on the Rugby football team (Valentine of Virginia), beaten all-comers in the boxing ring (Egan of Yale).

Last week, in announcing that John Salusbury Brewis of Hertford College would follow James Archer Macintosh as the Oxford scholar at Princeton, the secretary of that university gave an indication of what Davison scholars do in the U. S. besides study. In his year at Princeton, Macintosh won a speaking part in the annual production of the Triangle Club (musico-dramatic), became golf champion of Princeton University and Borough.

Reunions

Backslapping, loud-laughing, jibe-yell- ing, hip-fumbling, baby-boasting, bet-making, do-you-remembering college alumni poured out of automobiles, airplanes, railroad trains and into the alma maters of the U. S. for their class reunions.

At Ann Arbor, Mich., and Chicago, the jocund throngs were somewhat subdued, having in mind the memories of their late Presidents, Marion LeRoy Burton of the University of Michigan and Ernest DeWitt Burton of Chicago.

At Madison, Wis., talk was largely speculation about Editor Glenn Frank of the Century Magazine, President elect of the University of Wisconsin. Harvard alumni talked about the loss of Professor Baker of 47 Workshop fame and the resignation of well-loved Dean Briggs. Princeton men discussed their Princeton Fund (a fresh endowment) and the going from Princeton of Dean McClenahan.

At Yale, a favorite topic was Alumnus Newell Martin, 75, and President Angell. Laboring under the impression that his alma mater had gratuitously urged him and his fellow Yale alumni to behave themselves at their reunions, Alumnus Martin had sat down and addressed to President Angell (via The New York Times) a tart letter on the subject of teaching old gentlemen party manners (TIME, June 1).

Justly indignant, President Angell had at once written to the Times that Alumnus Martin was quite wide of the mark. No admonitions or other correspondence had gone out from the University to Yale's alumni with reference to reunions. The notice considered offensive by Alumnus Martin had originated in alumni circles. He, President Angell, did not hold certain narrow views on the use of alcoholics attributed to him by Alumnus Martin in his wrath. Alumnus Martin would be welcome at New Haven, Conn., to conduct himself as he saw fit at reunion; and Yale officially hoped that he would not, as he threatened, go with classmates to Montreal to celebrate.

Secretary Betts of the class of 1875 had written to Alumnus Martin that his letter was "outrageous", to President Angell that the reunion would be held in New Haven as usual.

Had Alumnus Martin acknowledged his error? Had he come to New Haven with his classmates? The discussions dwelt upon the trying position a college president occupies. Because he had told Alumnus Martin that he held no narrow views on the use of alcoholics and that the conduct of alumni was no affair of the President of Yale, Dr. Angell had been charged by a fanatical Pennsylvania alumnus with conniving at a "conspiracy in the class of '95 to violate the Eighteenth Amendment and flout the Constitution." "O! tempora," commented a Yale alumnus who had studied Latin, "Oh ! Mory's."*

*New Haven tap room, now technically dry.