Education: 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...