during these fights, yet they are marked by the absence of anything like violence and are really nothing more than friendly trials of strength between the two classes. They are most frequent in the early part of the college year, and reach their climax about midwinter in the Bowl Fight. The sophomores are given a certain number of minutes to place in a great wooden bowl, which they have kindly prepared for his reception, the lowest honor man of the freshman class. Should the freshmen succeed in holding their bowlman from the grasp of the sophomores until time is called, the freshmen then struggle to break the bowl. In the olden times, when the fight took place in the city streets and the police and "muckers," as the denizens of the West Philadelphia streets are called by the collegians, took part in the fray, bowl fights were indeed wild scenes; but since under the new régime the contest is confined to University ground and governed by rules they have been stripped of their horrors, and, in fact, have been so refined away that they seem passing into the shade of the traditional.

Truly is college life spiced with variety. The same man whom we see in the morning, in canvas jacket, howling and tugging in the center of a cane rush, we may find a few hours later, attired in faultless evening dress, whispering honeyed trifles as he glides through the circling mazes of a waltz. In the course of the year there are three balls given by the University classes-the sophomore dance, the junior ball, and the ivy ball of the senior class. And pleasant sights, in truth, are college balls; the room tastefully decorated with flowers and hung with college colors, the walls adorned with fraternity insignia and athletic trophies, and the gay whirling throng of handsome young fellows and pretty girls. And, besides the balls, the concerts of glee club and orchestra, the dramatic performances of the mask and wig, and the athletic exhibitions and contests, may be considered society events. Yet all these affairs accomplish a better result than merely furnishing amusement, for they attract the attention of the community and stimu late public interest in the University and its work.

Of late years there has appeared a tendency to allow many of the events of the year to gravitate towards commencement week; and while in olden times a commencement was the affair of a whole day, nowadays the celebrations attendant on the close of the College year are distributed over the course of a whole week. Baccalaureate sermon, cremation, junior exhibition, ivy planting, class day, and commencement, form a brilliant series of events, and for the time being the University becomes a center of general interest. The ceremony of ivy planting is a beautiful allegory. With suitable exercises, an ivy is planted beneath the College walls, and above is affixed a marble tablet bearing the name of the class and an appropriate device, as symbols of perpetual youth. Cremation, formerly as riotous a scene as an oldtime bowl fight, is transformed into a magnificent pageant. This is the awful night when, with solemn and mysterious rites, the exultant

sophomores place the torch to the funeral pyre of their vanquished enemy, the author of their most hateful text-book. Class day, in the main like similar celebrations in other colleges, is marked by one particularly pleasing incident, the presentation of a wooden spoon to the man who has endeared himself most to his classmates. To elect him spoonman is the highest honor a University class can confer on a classmate, and it is an honor to be remembered for life. The week is also marked by the publication of The Record, the literary souvenir of the graduating class. First published about fifteen years ago as a thin paper-covered pamphlet, The Record has grown into a large handsomelybound book, profusely adorned with illustrations. It contains statistics from all departments of the University and of all the organizations, the personal records of the members of the graduating class, the class-day exercises, and miscellaneous articles of a somewhat apocryphal nature; and within its pages is many a bit of real wit, and many an artistic gem. And finally comes commencement, when, attired in cap and gown, the student advances to receive the coveted degree.

Such is a sketch in outline of university life of a century ago and contemporary university life. It is these incidents of undergraduate days, many of them in themselves trivial, that indicate the moral and intellectual atmosphere in which the collegian lives for four years, just at the very period of life when a young man is most susceptible to external influences. The real aim of a college is not only to train the intellect, but to fit men for a place in the world; and undergraduate life, by the intimate association of man and man, and the contact of mind with mind, molds and strengthens the character. College life with its varied experiences is, in fact, but a miniature of the larger life for which it is the preparation; and that college which most thoroughly equips its students for their battle with the world, fulfills its mission in the truest and highest sense. Our alma mater has ever nurtured her children in true nobility, has ever held before them the ideal of true manhood, and as the years roll by, still bearing aloft her glorious standard, “literæ sine moribus vana," may she ever send forth her sons worthy the name of "Good Old Penn."

CHAPTER XXV.

ORGANIZATIONS WITHIN THE UNIVERSITY.'

The history of every institution such as the University of Pennsylvania exhibits an increasing differentiation into new channels and a widening influence due to the greater number of points in which it puts itself in contact with the outer world. In the earlier period of its history there was little organization among the students of the University, except such as the college authorities imposed upon them by reason of equality of years or attainment.

The various organizations within the University fall naturally into several well defined groups: (1) Alumni and class organizations; (2) organizations intended to supplement the ordinary curriculum of study; (3) organizations for special literary or scientific pursuits, including students' publications; (4) musical and dramatic societies; (5) athletic societies; (6) associations for purely social purposes, including the Greek letter societies and other fraternities, and (7) societies not otherwise classified. In many instances it will be impossible to draw a rigid line of classification, because many bodies, originally organized as purely ancillary to the regular curriculum of study, have long since become an integral and recognized part of the regular course, whilst even some of those, not strictly in the line of mere study, have be come so completely a part of university life, that to judge them apart would be to do violence to the spirit, if not the letter, of their constitutions. We shall proceed to consider these groups in the order mentioned above.

Class organizations have long been the established custom at the University of Pennsylvania. They extend to nearly all the departments, and are usually continued after graduation, frequently for many years. The desire to continue the associations of undergraduate life has led to the formation of various alumni societies, of which the earliest is the Society of the Alumni of the University of Pennsylvania, as it is styled, which held its first annual meeting July 14, 1836. The society, as now constituted, consists of graduates of the College Department of the University, and such other matriculates of that department as may have been elected to membership by the Board of Managers. Its object is to sustain and advance the interests

Want of space has prevented the printing of this chapter in the original form.

of the College Department and to form an organized body of its graduates. An annual meeting is held on the evening of commencement day, which is followed by the annual collation. The ordinary business of the society during the year is conducted by a Board of Managers elected at the annual meeting. A committee of the society has been at work for five years on a complete synoptic catalogue of the matriculates of the College Department to be published shortly. The society offers various prizes for scholarship and in athletics. The society, moreover, keeps itself in touch with the undergraduates by means of a provision of its by-laws by which a member from each of the last three classes graduated is elected to the Board of Managers of the society. The Society of the Alumni of the Medical Department of the University of Pennsylvania was founded in 1870. The object of this society is to sustain and advance the interests and influence of the Medical Department by the promotion of sentiments of general brotherhood and amity among the graduates and by aiding in all efforts to elevate the standard of medical education and to extend the progress of medical science and art. Among other works the society has just completed the catalogue of the graduates of the Medical Department. The society awards a bronze medal annually to the member of the graduating class who receives the highest general average. The Society of the Alumni of the Law Department of the University of Pennsylvania was incorporated May 1, 1861; its object "to sustain and advance the interests of the department, and to cherish feelings of amity among its graduates." This society is also governed by a Board of Managers, holds an annual meeting, and has established the Sharswood and the Meredith prize, "to be competed for by members of the graduating class for the best and second best graduation essay." The Dental and Veterinary Departments have each an Alumni Society of similar organization to those already mentioned. An especial feature of the latter consists in the appointment of a permanent historian, whose reports form a feature of the annual meeting.

Although no combination of the various alumni societies of the University exists at present, unity of action among the alumni of several of the departments is secured through the central committee of the alumni. This committee is composed of graduates of the College, the Law, and the Medical Departments, and as representative of the general alumni, it enjoys the privilege of nominating to every third vacancy in the Board of Trustees of the University.

(2) The majority of those organizations which are intended to supplement the ordinary curriculum of study are of comparatively recent growth, and due largely to the increasing breadth of the courses of instruction, the introduction of the elective system into the College Department, and the improved methods of study in the professional schools. However, long before the introduction of the Seminar or Labo ratory system, clubs of a more or less formal nature existed among

the students of all departments for the purpose of supplementing the ordinary courses by means of quizzes upon the lectures, or the preparation of papers involving original work. The Department of Arts has always had its study clubs in literature and the classics, the Towne Scientific School, clubs such as the present Civil Engineers Club and the Chemical Society, devoted either to some special technical topic or to the discussion of subjects of general scientific interest. In the Law School, aside from the Moot Courts and regular clubs, there have always been several quizzes; in the Medical Department, in the words. of its Dean, "there have been thirty clubs and quizzes of varying im portance in the last fifty years;" and the general statement is equally true of the Dental, the Veterinary, and the Biological Departments. Among the earliest is the Medical Institute, by some reported to have been in existence in 1817 and chartered somewhere in the forties. Another club of like character is the Demonstrator's Quiz, founded in 1886; it has given instruction to nearly 3,000 students since its organization.

Of late years the formation of small Medical Societies has done much to foster alike the studious and the social element among the students of that Department. There are at present four such societies. At their regular meetings papers are read and discussions held on subjects "relating to the theory and practice of medicine," addresses are occasionally delivered by honorary and ex-members, and in at least one a circulating magazine library forms one of the most valuable features. The membership of these clubs varies from fifteen to thirty. The oldest is the Alfred Stillé Medical Society; others are the Horatio C. Wood Medical Society; the William Pepper Medical Society, an extremely successful and popular organization, which aims at encouraging the scientific activity of its members, of which the writer has been unable to obtain any further data, and the D. Hayes Agnew Surgical Society. The efficiency of the Law Department of the University is greatly enhanced by the work of several legal clubs, formed at different times among the students. Six of these are now in active operation, the Sharswood, Miller, E. Coppée Mitchell, J. I. Clark Hare, George Whar ton Pepper clubs and the Phi Delta Phi legal fraternity. The work of clubs consists in quizzes and the argument of cases in which the members argue or sit as judges in rotation. The membership varies from twenty to thirty and the meetings are held weekly. The aggregate membership of all the clubs includes a large majority of the students in the Department. The earliest of these clubs was the Sharswood, founded in 1881.

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The Biological Department supports two clubs of the utmost value in the prosecution of biological studies, the Journal Club, and the Naturalists' Field Club, devoted to field studies in natural history, espe cially the study of the fauna, flora, and geological features of the region surrounding Philadelphia. Both societies are extremely liberal in