University Function in Nightgowns
By Editor
QUITE a story is told, in some of the papers, of the "Annual 'Nighty' Rally" that has come to be a regular feature in connection with one of the most influential universities in this great nation. It is not necessary to give the name of the university, because the point in mind is not to advertise the follies of a great educational institution, but to speak of the hilarities that are so common in every quarter, and which show so unmistakably the general tendency toward indecencies and degeneracies. The report tells us that all the various classes of the institution were required to attend the gathering in their "pajamas," but there was an exception in the case of the seniors, who were expected to "wear plain, old-fashioned 'nighties.'" Such a gathering, if arranged for little children of kindergarten age, would not seem so grotesquely out of place; but what can be the effect, in a moral way, of such unmanly actions on the part of "seniors" who are ready to graduate—not from a high school, nor even from a college, but from a great university? There are a great many people who insist upon teaching us that the world is getting better and better all the time. But the truth of the matter is that the great majority of mankind are continually lowering their standards, and thereby excusing the follies of this time that would have been spurned by the founders of this great republic as unthinkably disgraceful. Such things as annual "nighty" rallies are certainly beneath the dignity of decent men and women, to say nothing of the higher standards of true Christian morality. Professed ministers of the gospel and influential church people of this time are both excusing and upholding things that decent men of the world, without any pretense to Christianity, would have sternly frowned upon a generation ago.