HARVARD MEN "MOIST," ACCORDING TO ASSOCIATE EDITOR OF YALE RECORD

The following article on Harvard as seen by a Yale man was written by A. W. Griswold, associate editor of the Yale Record.

From our youth we have been nourished, weaned, rocked to sleep--in the good old cradle daze later entertained, diverted, but seldom amused, by stories of Harvard men, or further concerning Harvard men. I say we have not been amused: perhaps that is a trifle strong Whenever the story teller speaks as if his mouth were harboring a hot potato and says that in the way they talk around Boston, we laugh. That is only natural. But we also assume Harvard to have undergone adaptation to environment. A Harvard men must say "car" like a sheep with a cold in its nose, we think, simply because he likes to. Such a conception is false. Probably the Harvard man dislikes this snare-drum accent just as much as any one else, and yet is powerless to help himself because to make himself understood when strolling abroad among the winding alleys of Boston, he must talk that way.

A question that looms far more formidable upon the un-intellectual of Yale is why their schoolmates ever wanted to go to Harvard. I think this is easily answerable: they didn't. They, like the average members of any graduating class at school, wanted to go to college. Some headstrong individual thought of Harvard. The rest thought of nothing. According they went to Harvard. This hold true for nearly every college in the country, far outweighing parental influence. Personally I cannot see how so many happened to think of Harvard, but that is because I happened to think o'Yale.

Polish of Little Use in Bond Peddling

The rather nebular conception of the so-called "Harvard manner" troubles us even more. Why, we query, should a man act like a gentleman in college? Or, for that matter, why shouldn't he? A person's polish, blithely spattered upon a well-thumbed pedigree, will hardly serve him in peddling bonds. Wherefor then, all this poifect gent stuff? Is it, too, an adaptation to environment? Perhaps, but since the wholesome prostitution of "good names" has become a disturbing realization to most of the Beacon Street element there must be something beneath the surface. The Harvard man must actually have a manner. He has He has lots of them. They are readily apparent. They are also pretty good. But after a few years in the open air, the Harvard gentlemen and the Yale egg will be very hard to tell apart.

Harvard Men is Traditionally "Moist"

Whether Harvard men really are wet or not I cannot venture to say because I have never been able to find out what the word meant. The legendary Harvard man is rather "moist" (a belittling term), but that is because the originators of the numerous stories had good imaginations. Actually he seems to know quite a little about life a considerable amount to be candid. Whether he is right or not is nobody's concern. If song and story were infallible estimations of Harvard mentality, the chances are that he would be a trifle mistaken. And at this point it might be well to admit that the good stories about Yale men are for the most part unfit to print.

A singular explanation of the pride in antiques so rife, in the eyes of Yale, at Harvard, comes with the notice that Yale tears down old buildings to build new whereas Harvard merely has fires in the old ones and then repairs them. It is less expensive to cater to ancestor-worship in whatever its form than to be creative. It is also safer. If you brush your teeth criss-cross instead of up and down because you like it better, you should go to Yale. If you do so because grandpa did, better go to Harvard.

Yale Senses Intellectual inferiority

These are among others the "lorgnettes" through which Yale peers foggily at Harvard. We listen to jokes in which the protagonists are Harvard men, laugh, do not seek to reason why so-and-so went there kid so-and-so for having gone there, bet on the football game, the New London classic event, win, lose, forget all about it. I should expect to find neatly pressed clothing, red neckties, large wardrobes, pocket books and imaginations prevalent among the undergraduate body. I should realize, having quit the laissez-faire atmosphere of Yale for the savoir-faire atmosphere of Harvard, my intellectual inferiority to those who majestically point out buildings, tell us how to get to Soldiers Field, and invite us in for a couple before the game.