Each class associated with itself, it is true, the members making no close friendships with members of other classes, with the possible exception of the juniors and seniors, where class feeling did not seem to run so high. A man might know men of other classes, but he never took them for chums.
The democratic spirit at Yale came mainly from athletics, as Frank soon discovered. Every class had half a dozen teams—tennis, baseball, football, the crew and so on. Everybody, even the "greasy" grinds, seemed interested in the something, and so one or more of these organization had some sort of a claim on everybody.
Besides this, there was the general work in the gymnasium, almost every member of every class appearing there at some time or other, taking exercise as a pastime or a necessity.
The 'Varsity athletic organization drew men from every class, not excepting the professional and graduate schools, and, counting the trials and everything, brought together hundreds of men.
In athletics strength and skill win, regardless of money or family; so it happened that the poorest man in the university stood a show of becoming the lion and idol of the whole body of young men.
Compulsory chapel every morning brought together the entire college, and had its effect in making everybody acquainted with everybody else.
A great fosterer of the democratic spirit was the old Yale fence, over the departure of which "old grads" are forever shedding bitter tears. The student who had not known the old fence was inclined to smile wearily over the expressions of regret at its loss, but still the "old grad" continued to insist that the fence was one of the crowning beauties of Yale, and that nothing can ever replace it.
On the old fence men read the newspapers, crammed for recitation, gossiped, told stories, talked athletics, sung songs, flirted with passing girls, and got acquainted. Oh, yes, it was a great fosterer of the democratic spirit.
In the promotion of this spirit the drinking places at Yale are important factors. At Harvard the men drink in their clubs, the most of which are very expensive places, and in the Boston cafés. The Yale men drink at Morey's, and Traeger's, and Billy's. Traeger's, where from a score to fifty students may be seen any afternoon or evening, is furnished in exact imitation of German students' drinking places. In the back room is heavy furniture, quaint paintings, and woodwork and carvings. It had a sort of subdued cathedral light, which fell softly on the mugs which decorated the shelves and mantel.
Frank had proven that it was not necessary for a man to drink at Yale in order to be esteemed as a good fellow. Frank was a total abstainer, and his friends had found that nothing would induce him to drink or smoke. At first they ridiculed him, but they came to secretly admire him, and it is certain that his example was productive of no small amount of good.