In order to raise sufficient funds to enable the University Band to take the Princeton trip next Saturday, undergraduates will be asked at the mass meeting tonight to make contributions to cover the cost of travelling expenses.

It used to be the custom for students to subscribe for a professional band to play at football games but with the advent of the University Band this custom was done away with. Instead of a small professional organization at only the bigger games, rooters for the Crimson, for three seasons, have sung to the accompaniment of, and have paraded behind their own band.

With one exception--a professional player under season contract--every one of the sixty-six members are students or graduates of the University, who play at all the football games with no remuneration. As long as the Band remains in Cambridge it can pay its own library and management expenses. However, when it accompanies the team on games away from home, with no financial return, the travelling expenses are so great that the management is forced to appeal to the student body for support.

Present Band Organized in 1916

By this time the Band has established itself as a permanent institution at the University. It was first organized in 1916 as the Regimental R. O. T. C. Band, under the direction of F. L. Reynolds '20, and from that was formed the University Band as it is today. Various bands have been organized at the University at different times in past years, but until the present organization was formed there has been none which has attained such success.

Last year the Band played at all the football games, and for the first time wore their distinctive uniforms of white hats, white flannel trousers, crimson sweaters and black bow ties, and marched to the field for the games. On their trip to Yale last November they inaugurated the innovation of forming a white "H" on a crimson background in march formation by the colors of the players' caps. This year they have formulated plans for marching in "H" formation, using a double rank as the cross-bar and columns of twos to form the legs of the "H".

If possible, the Band will take forty men to Princeton, assuring the team of adequate side-line support. The results of the collection which will be taken up tonight at the mass meeting may possibly determine whether the Band will be able to make the trip or not.