Chapel

The corporation of Yale University, finally persuaded by periodic outbursts of undergraduate liberal zeal (TIME, Oct. 19, 1925), erased from the college rule book the compulsion to attend divine services daily. Beginning next autumn young Elis will worship when they see fit. The local Y. M. C. A. representatives professed themselves well pleased. "Now," said they, "Yale can build up a true university church, supported by sincere religious sentiment." The Yale News (undergraduate daily) was even better pleased, having laid down the first militant anti-chapel barrage in 1921 under fearless Editor Edwin Victor Hale Jr., and completed the campaign this year with thunderous siege editorials by resolute Editors C. F. Stoddard, and Russell Lee ("Sonny") Post.

Less sanguine guardians of the faith, folk who regard Yale's official action as a weak-kneed surrender to rashly importunate youth, had solace in simultaneous news from Smith College. There, young U. S. women expressed either a more conservative attitude toward religion, or greater contentment with the system as applied, by voting 1,081 to 209 to retain compulsory chapel at Smith, a ratio just about inverse to similar votes of late years at Dartmouth,. Yale, Amherst, Vassar, etc.