These were the days when every undergraduate at least professed an interest in athletics. Up to the Yale game, the 1923 football season was rather successful. After a 16 to 0 defeat at the hands of Dartmouth (bemoaned in those days as the "worst game since 1907") the team rolled over Tufts and Princeton. Then overconfidence set in; substitutes met an inspired Brown eleven while the regulars rested or watched Yale beat Princeton. Brown won 20 to 7.

The next week the team was in the peak of condition to meet the Blue on Soldiers Field. The freshmen joined the rally, cheered the final practice, and heeded the warning that "any man whose tickets are sold at a premium will be blacklisted." Hard-plunging Yale backs gave the visitors a 13 to 0 win in the driving rain. Hopelessly cheering till the last play, the man of '27 helped form a soggy 'H' with red and white handker-chiefs, tried lighting a Melachrino, took another nip at his pocket flash, and snuggled deeper into his raccoon coat. Afterwards he took his date to see the smash hit of the day, John Galsworthy's "Loyalties."

For some time the biggest college news was the publication of President emeritus Eliot's new book, "Harvard Memoirs," the inauguration of Radcliffe President Miss Ada Louise Strong, and a monkey who escaped from Apthorp House. The Harvard man's tranquil horizons were suddenly expanded when one October day he picked up the morning CRIMSON and read, "Ku Klux Klan--Awaits Moment to strike." "We may be inactive, but our influence is felt," were the words of the leader of the two-year-old Harvard branch. The undergraduate began to watch for flery crosses and was not reassured when the Klan tried to form a branch--Kamelia--at Radcliffe. The evil forces quietly vanished and the college calmly unveiled a memorial plaque to Theodore Roosevelt.

Later in the fall, the University anticipated the Social Relations Department by requiring 1,500 students to fill out a questionnaire which asked "Have you ever experienced mental telepathy?" Of the first 430 answers, 193 men replied in the affirmative, but the college did not release further information.

In January the undergraduates griped as they filed out another on prohibition. Although the drys stood 1,000 strong Harvard didn't side with the government and they failed to override the wets. Not quite surfeited, the CRIMSON ran a poll, this time on the Bok Peace Plan.

Athletic wise the class of '27 fared well until they met Yale, Demoralized by the previous week's defeat from the Tiger yearlings which soiled their otherwise clean slate, the freshman football team lost to Yale, 59 to 0. Stars Captain Leo F. Daley, Isadore Zarakov, and Al Miller were sidelined by injuries, however. Undefeated Yale also tripped the freshman football team, 2 to 1, on a last-minute goal. Captain Walter Ghorardi led the team to four wins, one tie, and two defeats. The Eli cross-country team showed their heels to Captain Sweede's men by a score of 20 to 29. Individually John Whitbeck won the Union singles tennis championship.

Back from vacation, and the Hygiene department reassured any freshmen feeling after-effects that they were a healthy class. Only 32.5 percent had reported they smoked and "only" 68 percent had poor posture (another 14 percent were "very poor"). Lest they get too cocky the department warned that 70 percent had systolic heart murmurs.

Just before January exams came the traditional mid-season sales: Raccoon coats were slashed to as low as $245, two-wheel brake Oakland roadsters ran about $839, and those essential commodities--gloves--as low as $1.95.

Meanwhile the Harvard Square Business Men's Association was campaigning to eliminate the subway kiosk. But when they discovered that having to walk from Central Square would drive way customers, the razing program went up in smoke. The rotunda increased traffic snarls and the CRIMSON noted that this was particularly dangerous for "untrained freshmen."

Exams came uncomfortably close. Freshmen went off to hear Bootch comic Sir Harry Lauder and then scuttled off for a last-minute cram. Meanwhile one dean told the Harvard Dames that "Girls, Clubs, tutorial schools and the 24-hour memory were demoralizing the college."

An ominous warning from the faculty that any "intellectual bootlegging" of lecture notes would be prosecuted sobered unprepared freshmen who thought that one of the Square tutoring schools would be just the thing. Still Widow Nolan's did a flourishing business and a New York firm succeeded in smuggling printed lecture notes--ostensibly designed for adult education--past the watchful deans. The class of '27 weathered the storm and breathed easily till the results came out.

Probation soon loomed its ugly head and the class mourned the loss of 45 jovial companions who departed, as a result of their mid-year showing. Dean Bacon spiked rumors that half the class was on probation. Coach Shaw ominously warned that "the success or failure of the freshman crew depends upon the men on probation." The Administrative Board alleviated the tension by announcing that that only three and a half C's were required to get off probation.

Not until April were the exact rank-list figures released. The class found that they had only 246 men 26 percent--on probation. Nine percent made the Dean's List, but perhaps the most envied intellectual was Henry F. Williams--the only group one freshman. Coach Shaw immediately selected his top 20 aspirants.

Hockey--Undefeated!

Meanwhile the winter sports had wound up their seasons. Captained by Clement D. Coady the freshman hockey team got a 4 to 0 win over Yale, and thus gained the honor of having the first undefeated hockey season since 1914. The freshmen wrestlers, captained by H. R. Wood, almost equalled its record, but Yale eked out a win. And the '29 basketball team ended a "disastrous season" by losing to Yale, 29 to 19.