The caste system of academic seniority, like all caste systems, is worst at its base. Such customs as the sequestering of the upper classes in their private quads or ovals, the jealous protection of senior privileges, and the calendrical elaboration of the alumni programme serve to import a picturesque if rather forced variety into our drab monotony. That men should choose to organize themselves to protect some more or less irrelevant distinction is of no special importance to outsiders so long as they do not use their organization to dragoon minorities or to bully individuals. Yet, speak out against the exploitation, and you will be accused of attacking the fellowship. Criticize the shackling of freshmen, and there will not be wanting college editors to call you a fanatic who cannot bear the jolly sight of cap and gown. The other system of caste, to which we give sharp attention when it goes badly wrong, is of course the club hierarchy. Wherever there are clubs their social capital will necessarily fluctuate with the quality of the members they take in. The reformers who deplore the institution of “rushing” have of course exaggerated its evils, but the evils are there. In young colleges, and wherever clubs are insecure, the candidates are liable to be spoiled for any club purposes before their destination is settled; wherever the candidates must do the courting, either brazenly or subtly, they tend to debauch the club. The dilemma holds, in one form or another, all the way from the opposed “literary” societies of the back-woods college to the most powerful chapters of the national fraternities; and it is particularly acute where the clubhouse is also the student’s residence. Any remedy thus far advanced by the reformers is worse than the disease. In many of the older colleges the equilibrium has been stabilized by a device similar to the gentlemen’s agreement in industry. The important clubs have gradually adjusted themselves into a series through which the clubman passes, or into which he penetrates as far as his personality and money will carry him. So the initial competition for untried material is done away with or greatly simplified; one or two large freshman or sophomore clubs take in all the likely candidates; the junior clubs do most of their choosing from among this number; and the senior clubs in turn draw on the junior. Meanwhile the member turnover is perhaps trebled, and initiations and other gay functions multiply.