Traditions Run Rampant at Waban; Once Started, They Keep Rolling On

Once something, got started at Wellesley, everybody wants to make it a tradition.

For the 74th time in its 76-year history, the whole college at 2 p.m. today will traipse through its annual spring fertility rite, Tree Day, on Severance Green. It's always been one of the best chances for Harvard men to look over the field without losing the sleep necessary to meet the early starting gun of the May Hoop Race.

After the senior president ecstatically murmurs her little piece about the first Tree Day the senior mistress and her court of four, elected for their beauty, descend from Founders Hall.

Today's dance pageant, "Gift of the Nile," shows the weeks of work that the 90-odd performers spent on it. The story revolves around a princess, played by Owen Stose '51, who has a difficult time choosing between three sutors offering her riches, royalty, and love--the silly girl.

The spade ceremony tops off the whole event. It's the spade that broke ground for the first Wellesley tree planting. Supposedly the two wittiest girls in the freshmen and sophomore class do a skit in which a play on the word spade is used. Here's what might happen today.

The freshman dresses as Cleopatra and the sophomore appropriately as General MacAnthony. When the General says, "I'm just an old sophomore spading away," that's the cue for the freshman class president to lead her class in a race against the sophomores to the secret location of the newly planted tree. If a freshman gets there first, her whole class can rightfully sing its cheers for the first time.

Float Night Dies

The best is yet to come. Ever since exhorbitant expense did away with Float Night three years ago, the big crew race has taken place on Tree Day instead. And incidentally, although the occasion almost always brings idyllic weather for the setting, it's all postponed a day in case of rain.

There's only one thing traditionally absent from Tree Day: the Sophomore banner. Anytime earlier in the year, freshmen use any ruse they can to steal the banner, including John Harvard's dressed as girls who sneak into the banner cache. The sophomores get thir banner back, though after the ceremonies.

Shortly before Tree Day, seniors don cap and gown to run the famous Hoop Race down Tower Hill, winner takes first husband. Ever since 1939, when a Lampoon president took first, disguised Harvard men in the race have become as renowned a custom as the tradition itself.

Oddly enough the winner of the last Hoop Race, Ester Coke, is also president of a far less familiar and newer Wellesley tradition, the Daisies. Not to be confused with Vassar's Daisy chain, this society is an organization of lethargic seniors dedicated to the purpose of being as inactive as possible. There are several underclass exceptions, who by exceptional feats, like spending over six hours a day in the Well snack bar, are accepted to the fold.

Step-singing has been close to the hearts of all Wellesley since the turn of the century. Maybe that's because it contains just the proper amount of sentimentality to a teardrop.

These 7 o'clock after supper frolics come on Tuesday and Friday evenings in the fall and spring. The four classes gather at their customary places on the Chapel steps. Everyone sheds an extra tear when the seniors, singing the "Step Song," leave their steps and the juniors take over. Keep May 18 open for this one.

Teddy Bears Stay

Quaint as it may seem for a women's college, Wellesley is a hotbed of fire chiefs, fire captains, and fire lieutenants. On March 17, 1914, College Hall, the center of the campus, burned down. There has been lots of emphasis on fire drills since. So around that day of Marsh, the college holds a midnight fire drill. It's the only time a Wellesley girl is told to pull up the shade and keep her door open. She must also grab one valuable thing, even if it's not her roommate. Teddy bears are discouraged. By the by, the girls all have the presence of mind to grab a coat too; so don't come out expecting too much.

The campus highspot, a 303.5-foot tower above Founder's Hall, has more than just a causal interest attached to it. The pinnacle is the center of another tradition, the Guild of Carilloners.

Almost every day carilloners ring the tower's 30 imported bells. Coincidentally, just 30 competitors could pass the stiff musical admission test to become members. Wellesley owes these bell to Harvard. Mrs. Charlotte Greene became interested in giving them when her parents were thinking of donating a set for Memorial Hall.

New Customs

Two post-war traditions look like they're here to stay. One is Wellesley's answer to the Dartmouth Winter Carnival, Winter Carousel, which occurs around February. The other is dwelt on more fondly, Sophomore Father's Day. Perhaps, Freud would call it socialized. Electra complex. But anyhow the old man gets to see what he's been paying for, and some girls even rationalize it into the best weekend date of their college career.

Flower Sunday, on the first Sabbath Chapel, further helps the freshmen to lose "that dreadful feeling." After a fire-and-brimstone minister sent one of the first freshmen classes away weeping from his wages-of-sin sermon, founder Henry Durant insisted that the first Sunday sermon be on "God is Love." The freshmen also love the free flower bouquet that goes with it.

Well, maybe if Wellesley girls started on "Harvard Men Only," it might become a tradition, too.