End of a Tradition

In every Yaleman's life, there has been one traumatic experience that other people do not have. It is Tap Day--the tense afternoon in May when members of the junior class gather to await the whack on the back that will send 90 of them to the six great Senior societies. William Howard Taft had sweated it out (he went Skull & Bones); so had his son Robert (Bones), and Robert's political adversary, Dean Acheson (Scroll & Key). Even that fictional stalwart. Dink Stover (Bones), had trembled at the thought of Tap Day: "The morning was interminable, a horror. They did not even joke about the approaching ordeal. No one was so sure of election but that the possible rejection of some chum cast its gloom over the day."

But the Dink Stovers who went to Yale after World War II seemed unable to take Tap Day too seriously. Many found it humiliating for the hundreds of juniors rejected; some found the etiquette of the societies ludicrous (in theory, a member hearing his society's name mentioned among outsiders was supposed to leave the room). Finally last week, Yale's Senior societies quietly came to a decision. After 75 years. Tap Day was abolished. Just how the societies will elect members from now on, no one yet knew. Said the Yale Daily News: "Tap Day was not a great evil . . . but as a tangible symbol it had drawn most of the anti-Society criticism . . . What remains is for the Societies to justify their existence . . ."

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