THE SENIORIAL TOGA

The time of year approaches, as it always approaches, when our budding boy graduates don the flowing black robe, the equilateral hat, and sally forth through the always-indifferent Yard, seeking what they may devour.

It is a good old custom, good and old. There are many of us to whom Cambridge would not be Cambridge, nor Spring Spring, nor a Senior his own unalterable self, if it were not for those well-dyed badges of honor.

The advantages of these seniorial vestments are many. With their sheltering aid one may put off for indefinite time the purchase of that checked Spring suit. One may forego entirely the joyous whiteness of the Spring straw. One may wrap the gown majestically around him when he arises in the morning, and omit the customary shirt, et altera. The possibilities of the robe are unlimited. Its capacity is all-embracing. It may be used as a bath-robe, as a motor-duster, as a prayer-rug, a shelter tent, a battle-flag on his scuttling boat.

The Nipponese has his kimona; the Siberian has his smock, and fair woman has more or less -- varying with the style -- of garments. Even the old Romans had their toga, by which a civis Romanus was marked off from a plain barbarian. Nothing less should be allowed our Seniors. One glimpse of them striding through the Yard, their gowns flapping like the wings of omnipotent victory, and their hands raised in exalted and Socrates-like motion to their heads, anchoring down the soaring mortar-boards, is sight enough to make the blind rejoice, and even a Sophomore feel young again.

Many things will change in time. Many customs will be forgotten. But let the seniorial toga, the glorious toga, never be banished from our midst till that dim age when Widener is a heap of dust, Yale is forgotten and John Harvard is exalted as the apostle of peaceful inertia.