SENIORS TO CONSIDER BUTTONS.

The Senior class proposes to take up the question of class buttons tonight. Ever since the custom was inaugurated by the class of 1905 about the middle of their last year, the succeeding classes have received it as an inheritance with more or less enthusiasm. No one has ever been able to show by any actual observance that Senior buttons fulfill in any appreciable measure the task which they are supposed to cope with of extending a man's acquaintance among his classmates and by so doing to encourage what variety of friendship is possible in the average class. On the other hand, it is equally evident that class buttons never did any one any harm to be avoided by future generations.

The last part of the career of a class seems the most illogical of all times to attempt to widen a man's acquaintance artificially. At best, it only results in a bowing acquaintance with a score or so of men who you had no idea before were members of your class. This in itself is good, but it is not what the scheme purports to bring about. A class has become definitely sifted into groups by Senior year. A man's friends are made and he will inevitably move more or less completely in his own particular circle, and the fact that he meets another man in the Yard wearing a class button whom he has never seen before will rarely serve more than to tag him as a member of the Senior class. This sounds heretical to the faithful believer in the complete unity of friendship and purpose in the class, but it is the plain truth.

As a method of tagging Seniors as opposed to underclassmen, no fault can be found with the custom. It would seen, however, that the wearing of caps and gowns in the spring, which besides tagging the Seniors, has other points in its favor, might be used in this connection, and if the energies used in encouraging both be directed entirely towards the caps and gowns so that the great majority of the class wear them in the spring, the buttons might well be given up.