Perhaps the above outline will help you to realise how large a place Yale is, and yet how small; how impersonal, and oh, how intimate; how democratic, and yet how easily divided into small aristocratic social groups. Yale life, with all its complexities, is a unit. A Yale man has something intangible, though valuable, in common with other Yale men. What this intangible character is would be difficult to say. An inheritance of traditions--more perhaps than any other large university in the country; a personality moulded by four years of the Yale curriculum system; a keen sense of competition; an aristocratic point of view upon a democratic life; and a taking for granted of certain well-established theories of knowledge: gentlemanly conduct and morality. These generalities may or may not help you. As for a picture of these Yale men--they are, on the whole, well dressed. They are noted in winter-time for their large, Brown fur coats, brown hats, and unbuckled goloshes. At week-ends they appear in considerable numbers with brown suit-cases, headed to or from New York. In the Spring the seniors wear no hats, smoke shiny Dunhill pipes, and usually keep their dark suits faultlessly pressed. But, on the other hand, one sees a large number of indistinguishable individuals, whose shoes are not shined, who do not own fur coats, and who carry rather more books under their arms than their more aristocratic brethren. This type is apt to be scrawny, diligent and sincere. But it is unfair to speak of types. No one individual ever conforms to his type. If you want to see us as we are, you must come and live among us. We are really human and therefore really indescribable. Yale correspondent in The Grants. Cambridge, England.
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