YALE LETTER.

NEW HAVEN, CONN., May 11.

Enthusiasm of the wildest and most rampant kind pervaded Yale at the close of the first debate ever won from Harvard. Of course it was a freshman class affair - but '98 has done herself proud by the real service which its representatives have rendered to Yale - in vanquishing the speakers from Harvard, eloquent and finished though they were. It is believed now that the tide in Yale debating has been turned, and a return to the old days of the Linonian and Brothers societies is not far off. The sophomores this evening conferred a unique honor upon the three Yale debaters. They placed them on this fence - an honor which is accorded to freshmen only in the event of great athletic triumphs - and cheered wildly for them and their class. It is very rare indeed for such fraternal relations to exist between two successive classes, and the occasion affords only another instance to prove that the art of debating is no longer held in disrespect at Yale.

The freshmen won additional glory this afternoon by their defeat of the sophomores in the inter-class contest for the baseball championship. Both classes vied in their endeavors to outdo the noisy demonstrations made by '95 and '96 in their game last week. Brass bands, drum corps complete even to the drum-majors, and cannon fire-crackers, sirens, horns, whistles and even shot guns were brought into requisition to create noise and express class feeling. The sophomores had the better organization, but were unable to "fuss" the freshmen who beat them by a big score. Next week will decide the class baseball championship between '98 and '96.

The choices of elective courses for the next year have now been tabulated. The class of '97 will devote more time than any previous class has done to work in Political Science. The course in Roman Law is taken by seventy-three juniors and seniors. Over two hundred have taken the course in Modern Novels. Except for these new courses, there has been but little change in the distribution of the courses.

The warm summer nights have increased still further the popularity of the Yale pastime of sitting on the fence. Men of all tastes and interests, society men and non-society men, "grinds" and their opposites, meet here every evening on the common plane of a Yale democracy. Never before has the fence experienced the intense veneration which has marked its present renaissance, and never before has class academic spirit been at such high water mark.

The death of Burton Arthur White of the junior class has occasioned general sorrow. The juniors will wear crepe buttons in mourning for him, for thirty days.

THE YALE NEWS.