News

Garber Announces Advisory Committee for Harvard Law School Dean Search

News

First Harvard Prize Book in Kosovo Established by Harvard Alumni

News

Ryan Murdock ’25 Remembered as Dedicated Advocate and Caring Friend

News

Harvard Faculty Appeal Temporary Suspensions From Widener Library

News

Man Who Managed Clients for High-End Cambridge Brothel Network Pleads Guilty

'Holiday' Gives Close Scrutiny to Social Life of College and Radcliffe

NO WRITER ATTRIBUTED

Three articles billed by Holiday as "the most infuriating ever published" probably will arouse little wrath when the magazine reaches Square newsstands this morning.

Ostensibly an explanation of the "naturally superior" Ivy intellect for people from west of the Alleghanies, the articles vary from a serious appraisal of the Ivy League education to a less high-minded account of the social life of Harvard "wonkies" and their Princeton and Yale counterparts, "ayools" and "weenies."

Former CRIMSON editor John Sack '51, in a story titled "Ivy Social Pastimes," sets down the tenets of "unwonkyism" and how he hopes he attained it during his years in the College. He recalls the fall Saturday afternoons at the Stadium when "the people around me bestirred themselves to yell with emotion:

"'We want a touchdown! We want a touchdown.' Behind us a voice piped up, 'But say, fellows, do we really want a touchdown? I mean, think it over.'"

Sack then turns his attention to the early season Radcliffe social, the jollyup, which "brings together fifty or so girls and upwards of two hundred stage for an evening of pure Dantean borror.

"It's like a slave market,' s Radcliffe girl confided to me once," Back relates. "'I feel as if everyone is counting my teeth and measuring my bust.'"

Later, at the same function, he recalls that after the inevitable exchange of names, home towns, and courses. If the girl he is dancing, with "has a full set at teeth and is not notoriously eczematous, someone else will cut in and recommence the sparking ad-lib."

The famous tradition of the Harvard Yale football rivalry comes under satiny in another article by writer John Knowles, who graduated from Yale in 1949. The College, he observes, has always been vulnerable to other people's bad manners. He quotes the CRIMSON of 1881;

"'Yale did not try to man our man as much as she usually does, and the second inning was to all appearances gentlemanly throughout." It is felt by nearly all Harvard men that Yale plays more violently than is in good taste.... There is no excuse for the use of teeth in football.'

Want to keep up with breaking news? Subscribe to our email newsletter.

Tags