Excerpt from The Wellesley Prelude, Vol. 2: April 18, 1891 It is urged that it would be more economical and therefore certainly desirable for the student to wear the cap and gown. Probably this is true, but there would be, I imagine, not so much reduction in the expense as appears on the first consideration. It must be remembered that if the gown should be adopted by the college, it must presumably be made with more care and therefore with more expense than the ordinary Tree Day gown. This would be true especially of the cap, and both would prob ably have to be renewed during the course, especially if worn at Commencement. But there is a very strong argument against the introduction of the custom. It would not be practicable for us to wear the cap and gown. In regard to the cap this has been shown by trial in more than one. Instance. Some seven or eight years ago the students at Brown went so far as to provide themselves with Oxford caps and undertook to wear them. In six weeks the project was abandoned. I believe a similar result has always followed from repeated efforts on the part of the students at Ann Arbor and at other colleges, to introduce the custom. At Bryn Mawr, where the custom of wearing the gown prevails, the cap has fallen in disuse because it was found too heavy and confining. In England it is possible to wear the gown because the climate is such that there is little need for warm out-door wraps, and the gown is sufficient in most cases. It is considered very bad form to wear the gown over an overcoat. But in our severe winters we must have other and warmer wraps, and what wrap can a student wear over a gown in going between the halls and cottages? Dame Fashion would have to set herself the difficult problem of devising a warm wrap which could be gracefully worn over a gown. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.