Word: flower
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...scrimmage the very essence of the custom? Is it not the tradition itself, around which the cheering and other details have grown up? A moment's examination will show this to be the case. Ever since the year 1815, and probably from a much earlier date, the flower exercises have been established at the Liberty or Farewell Tree, which, it must be remembered, is the successor of the old Liberty Tree which formerly stood between Harvard and Massachusetts Halls and which was blown down toward the close of the last century. For eighty years or more, the Senior class...
...clear then that the flower exercises are an old and unbroken tradition, and that they have existed in their present form for upwards of thirty years. To substitute artificial ceremonies for the living custom-the scramble for the flowers, is hardly a reasonable proposition. A tradition is the slow product of time and tendencies, and is only susceptible of very gradual change or modification. Once rudely disturbed from without and its very essence is gone. Briefly, you can not take away the flowers and the scrimmage on Class Day without destroying the tradition. You may still have exercises there...
...wholly unexpected announcement that the Corporation intends to end the old and honored Class Day custom of "scrimmaging" for the flowers about the "flower elm" will be received, by a very large part of the Senior class and of the whole undergraduate body, with the greatest astonishment and the most bitter feeling of opposition to the decision. It seems wholly unnecessary and unwarranted...
...with the changes suggested, inappropriate for cultivated gentlemen; unless indeed a manly good natured scramble, without unnecessary roughness, be unworthy of gentlemen, and only such a dainty sweet-scented farce be worthy of cultivated gentlemen as that in which, taking his turn, he may most valiantly pluck a flower from the tree with a well-gloved hand and carry it triumphantly away...
...decide upon at once. Many opinions have been expressed, from those that advocate practically no change to those which advocate the removal of the exercises to a larger space where each Senior might in turn walk up to the tree in a dress suit and valiantly pick a flower from the floral piece on it, or to those which call for the abolishment of the tree exercises entirely. It seems as if the one small exit from the enclosure might be increased to four large ones at the four corners of the stands and the danger of injury...