AT LAST, THE TRUTH ABOUT YALE

Harpers for October contains a strange little skit on the magic arts of the Bushnegroes in Dutch Guiana by John W. Vandercook, actor, editorial writer, and Yale man. The editors of the magazine, in introducing Mr. Vandercook, retail from his confidential confessions a sentence which is more significant than anything in the article itself. One year at Yale, it seems, was all Mr. Vandercook could stand. Unfortunately the details of that year are not given. Perhaps in the interest of truth and the unsuspecting youth of America, Mr. Vandercook is reserving them for another article. But at least a certain general truth about Yale, long suspected, is now established once for all. From that momentous and never-to-be-forgotten season at New Haven Mr. Vandercook says he emerged with "nothing but an unalterably low opinion of education in general and American universities in particular."

Both facts sound like Yale: his education went for naught, and he thought all colleges were like that. Even so, Mr. Vandercook has a tremendous advantage over the average New York man. He found out in one year what it takes most of them four to discover. By a mere technicality--a little matter of three years' residence--Mr. Vandercook failed to get his degree, when, by rights, his unusual acuteness really entitled him to a summa. No wonder he left in disgust for the jungles of South America!