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Benatovich in the Dramat ' s Tartuffe: The applause that refreshes. SPRING came, to the surprise of the Yale man, who had begun to believe that the whole world was a dirty, gray cesspool. With it came those peculiar sights and sounds of April in New Haven: a dazzling new crop of girls in Bermuda shorts, the creaking sound of convertible tops being low- ered for the first time in months, the bright red of strawberries in the dining halls, the clean click of an iron shot on the Yale Golf Course, and the gurgle the ball made as it sank to the bottom of the water hazard on the ninth hole. The long-awaited spring vacation was sud- denly a reality. For some, the vacation meant Bermuda on the low-cost student plan; for others, Florida, and ten days of mingling with the hordes from Ohio State; for a few wor- ried seniors, it meant studying for compre- hensives in New Haven. Meanwhile, the golden nugget of College Weekend glowed brightly in the not-too-distant future. Then if ever come perfect days. Springtime at Yale: Sunset on the Sound.

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In Hendrie Hall, a princely edict. On Chapel Street, a regal procession From the mouths of babes, an American dilemma. On the Merritt Parkway, a grim reminder. THE printed word everywhere caught our attention. In farflung corners of the world American soldiers read ' Yankee Go Home signs scrawled by Communist agita- tors. In America, the Yalta papers were re- leased, and provoked a furor of controversy. Momentous international decisions were re- flected in lengthy documents, designated with telegraphic brevity by alphabetical abbrevia- tions: NATO, SEATO. On occasion the print- ed word leaped out at the Yale man, too, caught and held his interest, sometimes frighteningly, sometimes amusingly. Here are reproduced a few signs of the times. In the Yale man ' s backyard, a feinine fatale. IN THE EVENT OF AN ENEMY ATTACK ON NEW YORK CITY THIS PARKWAY WILL BE CLOSED TO ALL TRAFFIC EXCEPT CIVIL DEFENSES MILITARY VEHICLES 8Y ORDER NEW YORK STATE CIVIL DEFENSE COMM 23

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THE senior class was being sent into the World Beyond with little more to shield them from its slings and arrows than a Yale diploma. Their entrance in June would receive little notice ; it was a world which was preoccupied with the problem of how to keep man from destroying himself. But if the class of 1955 was confronted with a host of problems in this brave new world, they could somewhat gleefully leave a number of minor ones to the underclass- men. Another tuition increase was scheduled, this time to the tune of two hundred dollars. A general lowering of grades, coupled with a suggested raising of the standards for Dean ' s List, tore the last shred of meaning from the legendary Gentleman ' s Average. Freshmen were to receive no choice in their allocation to residential colleges, and seniors would henceforth be required to take a fifth course. The crackdown in the administration fur- ther decreed the death of leniency in the cut system, and the new controversial school cal- endar heralded the demise of such old favor- ites as the Thanksgiving holidays. The crown- ing blow of all, however, came not from Woodbridge Hall, but from a tired wooden shanty on Park Street: the price of a pitcher of beer was raised from seventy-five cents to one dollar at the Old Heidelberg. Truly, nothing was sacred. ' And then into the world tve come The youth dramatizes himself and his world. The mirror in which he sees himself casts not a life-sized reflection, but one which magnifies him and frames him against the background of an age which he envisages as unique. Perhaps Sights and Sounds 1954-1955 is similarly guilty. Perhaps it emphasizes names and incidents which are of only ephemeral significance. Perhaps, in its historical nearsightedness, it is blind to the ideas and events which will neither fade nor be forgotten but which will be stressed by those who will write of us in the future. But there is a virtue in such a limited view: it distills, if only for a moment, the ingredients, great and small, which gives an age its peculiar flavor. If it has captured that flavor so that it may be recalled by those who tasted of it, it has succeeded. What sort of a year was it? We can hardly say; one must stand back from a mountain to judge its magnitude. Certainly 1954-1955 was a year of futility, of frustrated hopes, of broken ideals; certainly it was one of great strides in mans yearning to master his own destiny. In short, it was neither the best of times nor the worst of times, but lay somewhere between. The sights and sounds were the only variables; the essential continuity re- mained. In this sense, it was like the years that had passed, and the years which were to come. 25