If anyone doubts that Harvard students have a flair for hats, let him view the array now spread out in the Crimson office as mementos of a football victory over Yale. When the excitement had died away after the game, the Crimson, alert to the interest of its readers, organized a hat exchange. Many forlorn hats which had become separated from their fathers were thus restored to their homes. Yet now two weeks after the game the orphan hats number nearly thirty. And those who are constantly in and out of Harvard square have no difficulty in recognizing them as Harvard hats.

For hats indicate personalities. The stage comedian mimics Easterners, Westerners, farmers, bankers, professors, and yes, college students by a simple change of hats. The holdup man who wears a cap during his office hours, passes through crowded streets unrecognized and undisturbed at other times when his pseudo-respectability is set off by a stiff derby-hat. Humor consists largely in wearing a hat that is too large or too small. "Movie" patrons have learned to recognize Bill Hart and Charlie Chaplin by their hats. Election to political office carries with it the prerogative of a silk hat. Stable-boys take off their caps and put on silk hat. Stable-boys take off their caps and put on silk hats when they drive funeral carriages; that simple change gives them belike a dignified bearing, and indicates the warmth and depth of their sympathies.

Harvard students wear shabby hats. Their brogues are well shined; their golf stockings are imported; their knickers and jackets do credit to the fashion plates; their tennis shirts and colorful ties are at once neat and attractive. But by their hats ye shall know them. Faded, dirty, greasy hats; hats discouraged and dissolute, torn, broken, bent, crushed, tipsy; hats that have seen life and have not come back unstained; hats that have been curious about the scum of mankind only to have scum spattered upon them; hats that have lost their ideals, that no longer dream dreams or see visions; hats that have had the world too much with them--Harvard students wear them. Alas! these hats left in the Crimson Building will not be with us long. They have taken part in the jolly rag, tag, and bobtail of life; they have bowed to rosy--cheeked girls; their presence has brought smiles, sighs, soft words, and arch glances. But now they are almost forgotten. Life sweeps by in Plympton street outside. A false hope brightens the spirits of the hats as they wait in the Crimson building. Who knows but they may be called again? Who knows but they may again sweep down the stream of life? But the days go by and no one comes in. . . . The sunsinks and the chill of night comes into the air.  --Harvard Alumni Bulletin

The unclaimed hats have been turned over to the Phillips Brooks House-Ed