to do with student customs, the
regulation of old, and the establishment of new, "traditions," a
paradoxical procedure perhaps, but a source of much that is picturesque.
Of these traditions, none has been more acceptable than the custom of
requiring freshmen to wear the little gray caps, or knitted toques in
the winter, with a button at the top, signifying by its color the
College or School of the wearer. No more inspiring or beautiful ceremony
occurs in university life than the annual "cap-night" celebration when
the student body meets in "Sleepy Hollow" near the Observatory, about a
great bonfire, to watch the burning of the caps, and the formal
initiation of the freshmen into the responsibilities of college life.
The dance of the freshmen about the fire and the showers of caps falling
into the flames (they have been sent to the Belgians the last few
years), combined with the vigor and idealism of the speeches which
follow, all conspire to produce one of the most stirring and impressive
events of the year.

Of more fundamental importance has been the Council's regulation of the
irrepressible freshmen-sophomore rivalry, which long took the course of
medieval hair-cutting forays, sometimes, as in 1904, carried on even
within the sacred precincts of the Library. The reform came through the
establishment in 1908 of a series of inter-class contests. Particularly
picturesque are those held in May, which include a tug-of-war across the
Huron River, a series of obstacle relay races, and a massed battle about
a six-foot push ball on Ferry Field as the finale. While not entirely
innocuous, these games form an apparently necessary and acceptable
safety valve for the exuberances of class spirit. The upper-classman is
most sensitive to the good name of the University; to him the dangers of
undue newspaper notoriety are quite apparent, and thus through the
Council the students themselves have been able on the whole to control
successfully what is always a difficult and delicate question for
university officers. Hardly less important among the Council's functions
is the management of various undergraduate occasions, mass-meetings,
campus elections, and inter-class athletics, demonstrations where
trouble might brew without the guidance of wiser heads. More than once
when a mass of under-classmen has seemed on the verge of a dangerous
explosion, the members of the Council have intervened quietly and
effectively. Ordinarily, this mode