"
* * *
Somewhere in the last days of June, New England is at its
loveliest and it is commencement time at Yale. Under the tall
elms stretch the shady streets, alive eternally with the
ever-new youth of ever-coming hundreds of boys. But at
commencement the pleasant, drowsy ways take on an astonishing
character; it is as if the little city had gone joyfully mad.
Hordes of men of all ages, in startling clothes, appear in all
quarters. Under Phelps Gate-way one meets pirates with long hair,
with ear-rings, with red sashes; crossing the campus comes a band
of Highlanders, in front of the New Haven House are stray
Dutchmen and Japanese and Punchinellos and other flotsam not
expected in a decorous town; down College Street a group of
men in gowns of white swing away through the dappled shadows.
The atmosphere is enchanted; it is full of greetings and reunions
and new beginnings and of old friendship; with the every-day
clothes the boys of old have shed responsibilities and dignities
and are once more irresponsibly the boys of old. From California
and Florida, even from China and France, they come swarming into
the Puritan place, while in and out through the light-hearted
kaleidoscopic crowd hurry slim youngsters in floating black gown
and scholar's cap--the text of all this celebration, the
graduating class.
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