CHAPTER X
COLLEGE TRADITIONS AND SPIRIT
College life in America is rich in traditions. Customs are handed down class by class and year by year until finally they acquire the force of law. Each college and university has a community life and a character of its own.
The spirit of each institution abides within its walls. It cannot be invaded by an outsider, or ever completely understood by one who has not grown up in it. The atmosphere of a college community is conservative. It is the outcome of generations of student custom and thought, which have resolved themselves into distinct grooves.
It requires a thorough understanding of the customs of college men, their antics and pranks, to appreciate the fact that the performers are simply boys, carrying on the traditions of those gone before. Gray-haired graduates who know by experience what is embodied in college spirit, join feelingly in the old customs of their college days, and in observing the new customs which have grown out of the old.
These traditional customs, some of them humorous, and others deeply moving in their sentiment, are among the first things that impress the freshman. He does not comprehend the meaning of them at once, nor does he realize that they are the product of generations of students, but he soon learns that there is something more powerful in college life than the brick and mortar of beautiful buildings, or high passing marks in the classroom. When he comes to know the value and the underlying spirit of the traditions of his college, he treasures them among the enduring memories of his life.
The business man who never enjoyed the advantage of going to college, is puzzled as he witnesses the demonstration of undergraduate life, and he fails to catch the meaning; he does not understand; it has played no part in his own experience; college customs seem absurd to him, and he fails to appreciate that in these traditions our American college spirit finds expression.
As an outsider views the result of a football victory, he sees perhaps only the bitter look of defeat on the losers' faces, and is at a loss to understand the loyal spirit of thousands of graduates and undergraduates who stand and cheer their team after defeat. Such a sight, undoubtedly, impresses him; but he turns his attention to the triumphant march of the victorious sympathizers around the field and watches the winners being borne aloft by hero worshipers; while hats by the thousands are being tossed over the cross bar of the goal post that carried the winning play.