Harvard-Yale

In Cambridge, Mass., atop the solemn, Georgian bulk of Harvard Hall there is a cupola where, one morning long ago, early risers were astonished to behold a horse & buggy. In another Harvard Hall, banquet room of the Boston Harvard Club, there were assembled, one night last week, some 400 members of the Yale and Harvard Clubs of Boston, the Yalemen guests of the Harvardmen. Each alumni body had brought along its university president. All understood it to be the first meeting of its kind in history.

When the alumni were well-fed and lightsome, they heard Yale's President, with Angellic jocosity, say: "One of our coaches, on the day that the Carnegie report was published [TIME, Nov. 4] told me that he would gladly exchange all Yale's purity for a good set of ends. . . .* We have long known that Yale teams were suffering from something and now this something appears to have been excessive purity. Already there is a movement afoot to add to Yale's motto, Lux et Veritas, the word Puritas. Later this year when you view the Yale team in action, I am happy to tell you that you will find the players appropriately arrayed in helmets of a glistening white."

He told the tale of a Harvard Freshman, who was asked in an examination: "Who founded St. Petersburg?" The Freshman answered, and President Angell thought perhaps rightly: "St. Peter." To the question, "What lands lie beyond the Jordan?" the Freshman replied, delphically: "It all depends upon which side of the Jordan you are."

President Lowell replied to President Angell with a gravity that almost became emotional. He told his visitor to hold high the Yale-Harvard brand. Said he: "I am a great admirer of Yale. . . . Together, Yale and Harvard are four times as strong as either one is alone. ... I am an older man than you. I shall be gone long before you. I earnestly hope that whatever you plan may come to fruition. When I am gone, any improvements which you make I know will benefit no less the institution where I was nurtured."

*Yale was one of the 28 institutions acquitted among 112 scrutinized for subsidizing.