The Tree Scrimmage is the Essential Part of the Class Day Exercises.

To the Editors of the Crimson:

The committee of the Corporation insist on the abolishment of the scrimmage for the flowers on Class Day. What is the full import of this resolution? Does it not amount to a condemnation of the whole ceremony at the Tree, and the blotting out of the distinguishing feature of Harvard Class day?

The Corporation may reply, "No. Substitute some other exercises at the Tree and there will be no objection to continuing the custom." But is not the scrimmage the very essence of the custom? Is it not the tradition itself, around which the cheering and other details have grown up? A moment's examination will show this to be the case. Ever since the year 1815, and probably from a much earlier date, the flower exercises have been established at the Liberty or Farewell Tree, which, it must be remembered, is the successor of the old Liberty Tree which formerly stood between Harvard and Massachusetts Halls and which was blown down toward the close of the last century. For eighty years or more, the Senior class has assembled on Class Day under the present Liberty Tree, to perform the flower exercises. At first the comparatively small size of the graduating classes made it possible for them to execute a dance around the Tree, after which each man detached a flower from the wreath; but as the classes grew larger the dance had to be given up, and for the same reason it became more difficult to obtain the flowers. And so the scrimmage for the flowers came to take the place of the dance, and soon after the fifties the exercises were much the same as they are today. To be sure, the height of the flowers was gradually increased, but to judge from a picture in a weekly journal of 1870 (which may be seen at the Library), the wreath was already at this time fully as high as it is today; for the Seniors are represented as holding up their comrades who still are unable to reach the flowers.

The only recent innovation as to the position of the flowers, is the class number above the wreath, and I am told by graduates that even this is not wholly a new thing.

It is clear then that the flower exercises are an old and unbroken tradition, and that they have existed in their present form for upwards of thirty years. To substitute artificial ceremonies for the living custom-the scramble for the flowers, is hardly a reasonable proposition. A tradition is the slow product of time and tendencies, and is only susceptible of very gradual change or modification. Once rudely disturbed from without and its very essence is gone. Briefly, you can not take away the flowers and the scrimmage on Class Day without destroying the tradition. You may still have exercises there but they will be a farce-not a tradition.

As for the objectionable features, however, which have crept into the exercises since the introduction of the class member,- these might easily be removed without destroying the essential value of the affair, which is nothing more than a good-natured, rough-and-tumble scrimmage. It would seem that the suggestion of the Class Day Committee to dispense with the number, and also to lower the wreath, would do away with all offensive roughness, and the necessity of forming large combinations in order to obtain the flowers.

At al events the Corporation should at least allow the student body the opportunity of remedying the abuses to which they have objected before they insist upon abolishing a custom which is so intimately associated with the college life of the past, and so dearly treasured by the undergraduates (and we believe also by the graduates) of the present day.

F. H. KINNICUTT '97.