OPEN HOUSE FOR THE ALUMNI

When we are tempted to sneer at certain Yale antiquities, such as compulsory chapel and an old-fashioned cut system, it is well to notice some other respects in which we can afford to learn from Yale. One of these is the midwinter Alumni Day which has become a young tradition at New Haven. Princeton has watched its operation and thought it good enough to adopt; the University may well give it some consideration.

Yale has set aside Washington's birthday as an annual day when its alumni return to New Haven and renew their acquaintance with their university. Through a program of speeches by faculty and undergraduates, athletic events, and still other entertainments, the life of the college is presented to the alumnus in vivid and concentrated form. In one day he can restore his memory of "bright college years", discover what changes and developments have occurred, and learn first-hand about the present-day needs of the college.

Talk has been current lately as to what share the alumni should have in the direction of a university. An article in the last Graduates Magazine traced "the growth of non-resident government" at Harvard, while a recent contributor to the New Republic denounced the tendency of graduates to exert too much unintelligent influence over an institution's affairs, which they are able to control on account of their financial responsibilities. Such charges are of course ill-considered: if any group of men is fitted, both by character and by first-hand knowledge, to serve a university, it is its alumni, whose ideals have been shaped by it, and who have had personal experience of its needs. But it is true that these ideals are apt to be somewhat dimmed, and the memories of those experiences less distinct, after a few years away from college.

At present, Harvard offers most of its alumni only one time at which they can renew their personal contact. That is at Commencement, when student affairs are not proceeding on their normal plan, three-fourths of the undergraduates have left Cambridge, and the alumni themselves are so occupied with reunions that they have little chance to refresh their acquaintance with college opinions and problems. Clearly, a day such as Yale's, in the middle of term-time, would provide the closer touch that is needed. And it would not only be of advantage to the alumni, but might help the students, as well, to understand the changes that are occurring unconsciously around them. The day would not need to be a formal occasion; the more informal it were, the greater its usefulness. And it would not need to be very largely attended, as long as a representative group of alumni took advantage of it. Merely the idea that a particular day was set aside to welcome them, and that the college in all its phases would be open to them then, would appeal to many almost as much as the more formal reunions at Commencement. The success of the plan at Yale and at Princeton is sufficient evidence.