YALE PAGEANT NOTEWORTHY

In a review of the book on the Yale pageant, which is to be given in the Yale Bowl on October 21 to commemorate the transfer of the institution to New Haven, the Boston Transcript says: "When Mr. Metcalfe, the reviewer of plays for Life agreed to contribute to the Book of the Yale Pageant, a chapter on Yale and the Drama he obviously was hard put for material. He fills little more than two pages; he admits frankly that nowhere in the history of the American theatre, its control, its acting or its literature does the name of Yale appear; he can find nothing to compliment but the intelligently directed accomplishment of the Yale Dramatic Association--in no other American University or college, as he truly says, so wisely guided; and he takes final refuge in a reference to the pageant which is the occasion of his essay: 'In the revival of the art of pageantry, which is closely allied to the art of the theatre, Yale has made its influence felt in a way that bodes well for the place of the university in the future history of the American drama.'"

"After describing the general scheme of the pageant, which is divided into four episodes, colonial, Revolutionary, early nineteenth century and modern--with a prelude and three interludes, the article continues: 'In general purpose, the scenes within the episodes picture incidents in the life of the college and of New Haven during the two centuries that the pageant traverses; while the rest yields opportunity for symbolic and poetized spectacle and music--an equal necessity of idealizing pageantry.

First Scenes in Wales.

"Since it appears that Elihu Yale was of Welsh descent and that his name was derived from a manor-house in Wales, the prelude pictures the meeting and the wedding of Margaret Ap Ienkyn and Ellis Ap Griffith, wherein the estate was dowry. Welsh bards celebrate the union and while there is use of the spoken word--a dubious necessity in pageants--there is occasion for procession and music. Next follow--to make the first episode--four scenes in the earliest history and tradition of New Haven. Theophilus Eaton, first governor of Connecticut, and John Davenport, the preacher, and their followers pow-wow with the mild native Indians and possess themselves by friendly purchase of the site of the present city. The divines, who founded "The Collegiate School" at Saybrook, assemble in preliminary conference--not without homely characterizing touches--and resolve upon their great adventure. Fifteen years later, "The Collegiate School" has been moved to New Haven and resentful Saybrook refuses to give up the books that are its only library. The sheriff is sent to seize them by legal process and a pretty fight ensues between the attendant students and the angry villagers. Next befalls a half-humorous, half-ceremonious picturing of the first Commencement at New Haven and the announcement of the gift from Elihu Yale that set his name upon the college.

"The Revolutionary episode traverses events at New Haven and elsewhere during the war against England in which the professors, the students or the graduates of Yale were more or less directly concerned, ending with the visit of Washington to city and college as president of the new free and independent state. One scene pictures Captain Benedict Arnold's vigorous demand upon the selectmen for gunpowder and ball that he might take his command to Cambridge in 1775; another epitomizes the expedition of English troops to New Haven in 1779 and the taking of the town; the third shows Nathan Hale--a son of Yale--on the way to execution as a spy between the escorting British soldiery and the murmuring and resentful bystanders; while the fourth revives the ceremonies of a presidential visit in 1789.

"In contrast, the early nineteenth century episode returns through two scenes to the college itself, One, for which the participating students and citizenry are