Yale Letter.

NEW HAVEN, Feb. 24.

At present the intellectual side of the University is coming into the greatest prominence here. "Sheff" students are considering the advisability of establishing a chapter of Sigma Xi which was founded in November 1886 at Cornell University by Professor Henry S. Williams '68 S., now Silliman Professor of Geology at Yale, and is intended to have the same significance of scholarly merit that Phi Beta Kappa holds among classical students. Phi Beta Kappa has also adopted certain amendments to its constitution and raised its standard of membership from 3.15 to 3.20 on a scale of 4 during a course of 2 years of more, or 3.40 for a single year. The object of the changes is to equalize the amount of work which must be done in order to secure an election to the society and to decrease the numbers as well as increase the honor of membership.

The make-up of the Yale 'varsity crew has been changed again. Armstrong is at stroke, in place of Miller and Simpson. Saturday the men were coached by S. B. Ives '93. The make-up was: Stroke, Armstrong; 7, Treadway; 6, Dater; 5, Langford; 4, Longacre; 3, Beard; 2, Holcomb; bow, Wheelwright.

The freshman crew is badly handicapped by the injury to E. H. Brewer which has compelled him to give up all training. Payne Whitney will handle the crew until another captain is chosen in Brewer's place.

The freshman candidates for the university nine will be called out February 27. At present the only men at work are the batteries who are being coached by Captain Rustin and Carter '95.

The opinion of the student body here with regard to the recent action of the Harvard faculty is expressed by the News as follows: "We heartily sympathize with the HARVARD CRIMSON in its condemnation of the vote of the Harvard faculty to abolish intercollegiate football, and we believe that its editorial represents the undergraduate feeling at Cambridge on the subject."

The English department has all but completed the plans for producing Ben Jonson's "Silent Woman" and it will probably be given at the Hyperion before April 1. There is every reason to believe that the University will turn out in great numbers for the performance.

Active preparations are now being made for the athletic event of the coming week - the Yale-Princeton gymnastic exhibition, Wednesday, February 27.

Debating has received a new impulse by the announcement of the question to be debated upon with Princeton in New Haven, May 1, - "Resolved, that the Income Tax Law of 1894 was, under the circumstances, a justifiable one." It is understood that the question of constitutionality shall not be made a point of in the debate.

THE YALE NEWS.