Chain

When daisies pied and violets blue

And lady-smocks all silver white

And cuckoo buds of yellow hue

Do paint the meadows with delight . . .

Then, as all the world knows, the girls of Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, N. Y., hold the ceremony of the Daisy Chain. The rotogravure sections of metropolitan papers contain, during that week in June, immense flowery serpents of braided daisies. In hamlets, in far cities, in spacious houses on country roads, friends and relatives of Vassar sophomores seize upon the papers, push eager forefingers along the Daisy Chain, from face to face. If they thus discover the countenance of their friend or relative, they instantly set their heads at an angle, compare some other countenance selected haphazard from the file of flowery faces with that on which their finger rests.

Others who fail to find in the picture the face they seek, assert with conviction that college politics, not beauty, governs the selection of the 24 bearers of the Daisy Chain. Still others condemn the whole Daisy Chain as "cheap," "vulgar." "It much resembles a bathing-beauty contest!" cry they. "Daisy Chains should be abolished!"

Recently, the voices of these latter have become so loud as to resound on the Vassar Campus. During the past fortnight, Seniors consulted together: "Shall we abolish the Daisy Chain?" they asked. Last week, debate raged. After much pro and con, the issue was decided: the ceremony of the Daisy Chain will not be abolished, but will be held this year as usual.

A committee of 10 Seniors and Sophomores select the 24 most beautiful girls from the Sophomore Class to carry the chain. While beauty is the prerequisite, popularity is sometimes reckoned as a degree of beauty. On the morning of Class Day, the remainder of the Sophomore Class go into the nearby fields, pick many carloads of daisies which they plait into a chain. Meanwhile, the 24 rest, or busy themselves arranging shoulder pads on which to bear the weight of the Chain (about seven pounds for each shoulder). In the afternoon, guests assemble before the stage of the Vassar outdoor theatre; an orchestra of strings and woodwinds strikes up a martial air; the chain-bearers lift their load, oftentimes sneezing because of the dusty pollen of the daisies. Slowly they circle the stage where the Seniors stand, march up a hill, split their column into two lines through which the Seniors, who have followed, pass.

At the Commencement's end, the Chain is taken away by an old gentleman who busies himself with daily removals of debris from the Vassar Campus.