We were talking about Prom. A group of writers and publishers on a long railway journey happened to know that it was Prom time at College. The historian and biographer of the party, Mr. Claude Moore Fuess, Headmaster of Phillips-Andover, offered to tell a story.
'I believe,' said he (and he gave permission for the story to be repeated here), 'that I am the only man in the world who danced at Mount Holyoke College both at the last Prom where dancing was not allowed, and at the first Prom where dancing was allowed.'
He waited to let this fact sink in. Then somebody corrected him.
'You mean,' said the critic, 'that you attended the last Prom where dancing was not allowed. Not that you danced at it.'
'But that's the whole point,' said Mr. Fuess with the historian's pride in accuracy. 'Dancing was not allowed, and yet I danced.'
Then he explained how it came about. The girl who had invited him to that last exclusively walking Promenade was fond of dancing. So was he. Together they repaired to the bowling-alley in the basement, still within hearing distance of the orchestra, and up and down among the tenpins there they danced.
'Were there many others dancing in the bowling-alley?' I demanded in a responsible chaperoning voice.
'Many others? I should say not!' protested Mr. Fuess. 'We were all alone. It was strictly against the rules. I tell you this was an Adventure!'
Steeped as I was in the legalistic lore of early College regulations, I looked at the excellent Head Master through the eyes of an elder day. 'Adventure!' thought I to myself. 'Adventure! Young sir, you little know! It is a criminal record you have been disclosing in my presence so confidingly; no less.'
When the class attended that particular Prom came back to South Hadley for reunion recently, one of their banners was lettered, 'OUR PROM WAS A WALKATHON.' That banner should have carried a footnote: 'But not for the girl who danced with Claude Moore Fuess.'
That very year, Smith College at a prearranged signal broke into a two-step and smashed their time-honored rule. You cannot indict a whole college. Mount Holyoke planned to do something equally drastic in the year to come. The class of 1907 was to be the sacrifice, but naturally they preferred to have dancing legalized, if possible, at their Prom. Petitions were duly presented and a class meeting was called to hear the decision of the Faculty. This was in 1907's junior year, and is reported in the Tri-Weekly Tribune of 1906:
When the president of the junior class entered the room where the class meeting was to be held last week and was fairly mobbed to find out what the faculty had replied she bore herself proudly and importantly, but refused to say a word until the meeting had been called to order and the subject had been led up to with the best parliamentary tactics. Then she threw dignity to the winds and said excitedly: 'Girls, we can dance.' The rest of her remarks were lost . . . but when they were heard they were a little like cold water. 'But there are restrictions,' she said.The restrictions were that each girl must hand in the name of her guest, to be approved by the faculty; that a letter is required from the girl's parents giving their consent, and that young members of the faculty must not be chosen as patronesses.
Parliamentary discipline in the rest of that class meeting was maintained with difficulty. Questions were propounded from the floor. How young is a member of the Faculty who is 'young'? What must a man be in order to be 'approved'? May he be 'young'? . . . As the class meeting got hotter and hotter, suggestions were made. 'Let's send in a family Bible with the family register leaf turned down with every name.' - 'Let's ask the man's parents to come along and identify their son.' - 'Let's not have any Prom.'
But the Prom was held. Mr. Fuess (duly approved) was again invited, again accepted, and everybody danced. Whether he enjoyed it any more than the solo performance down the polished runway of the bowling alley in the year before is not disclosed.
Just how the Prom managed when there was no dancing? Originally it was a 'Promenade-Concert.' Then it became a garden party. There was a band. There were Chinese lanterns strung among the trees and lines of march laid out among the gardens and through the groves. There were ever so many places where one could sit down. Not so bad, not so bad, in springtime at South Hadley with the campus all in bloom.
Then there was a long era of mid-winter Proms in the Gymnasium. I am indebted to Miss Bertha H. Gault for a description of what the freshmen did one February in honor of the juniors and their guests, on the occasion of an old-fashioned Junior Prom held on Washington's Birthday.
It chanced that a wet snow, just the kind for packing fell and the 'little sisters' with hearts full of loyalty and, as appeared later, with unusual ability as sculptors, turned out and worked with magic swiftness, the result being that those who passed through the campus in the evening found themselves amid snow images. There was a life-size reproduction of George Washington, as seen in a familiar full length portrait, standing in front of Mead. In front of Wilder was Washington in a boat crossing the Delaware.The episode of the cherry tree was presented in front of Safford. The tree was lying there in plain evidence, snow white but with cherries of scarlet. Beside the tree were the figures of the father standing and little George on his knees before him, the hatchet cast aside on the ground.In front of the gymnasium was an Indian seated with Indian clubs on either side, icicles for feathers in his headgear.
Before Porter was a gigantic reproduction (a stepladder must have been used in making it) of the three moneys who see not, hear not, speak not evil. This took the highest honors in the prizes awarded. Second prize was given to a group piece in front of Brigham, consisting of a toboggan on which a girl and two Prom men were starting down the slope. It was spirited and full of life.
Quite appropriately placed before the most public of the dormitories, Pearsons, a prom man and a prom girl were seated on a sofa. Really all of this snow sculpture was done with marvelous skill. It would seem as tho there must have been some presiding genius over it all, but I have not heard that there was.
Nowadays the freshmen, sister class to the juniors, have a definite duty in connection with Prom. They act as practice partners in preparation of the grand march. A curious evolution of this feature of the dance has come about. Nobody dared to have any marching at Prom when dancing first came in, because it reminded everybody too sharply of the time when one could do nothing else. But today all that is so far back in the haze of dim mythological lore that every up-to-date Junior Prom opens with a literal promenade, beautifully designed and carried out. Whether this is done in memory of early customs or because it is essentially so pictorial would be hard to say, but it certainly justifies calling the dance a 'Promenade.' The intricate figures have to be practiced beforehand. Since the men are not there to join in the rehearsals, the freshmen take thier places and faithfully march and march. The results are electifying. When the orchestra strikes up and the actual promenade begins, all that the men need to do is to step along with their partners to the music, in order to find themselves weaving in and out of the most amazing convolutions, spiderweb patterns, windmills, and wheel designs - everything spontaneous and swift-footed, but looking from the galleries as symmetrical as if it had been rehearsed for days - as with the girls it pretty nearly has.
Interesting to watch certain idea come around again, not only in the promenading but in decorations. One Prom in the old days was a dream of roses and Southern smilax; this year was a formal Southern garden with silver starlight in a blue sky and hangings of Florida moss. At one of the early garden party Proms the girls wore such immense puffed sleeves that they had to turn slantwise when going through a door. The Great Puffed Sleeve is almost upon us now. And the vogues in decorative girls also go round and round. The 'raving beauty' of ever so long ago would recognize the 'wow' of today. Other techniques have flourished - the drooping violet, the Floradora, the 'good fellow,' the Theda Bara siren with the long slow sidewise look, and the cult of the Immovable Countenance. Just what it will be by Prom time this coming spring would be risky to predict, but a Philadelphia shop on Chestnut Street is advertising 'disturbing Prom clothes.'
An artist who wanted to make a study in physiognomy over a span of thirty years would find it worth while to sketch, in series, the girls who are best of all at dances and the girls who are elected May Queen at the colleges for women. The requirements are not the same. The May Queen has to weather not only the light of day but the judgment of her peers. Then this studious artist should hunt up some of the early May Queens and sketch them twenty years after. They really could stand it. The sort of beauty that can run up a May Queen election by the suffrage of her critical colleagues can survive almost anything else.
The rest of the May Day actors can range from the knights and ladies of Spenser's faery drama, with a real dragon prowling the woods, to shepherds and shepherdesses with a maypole; but whatever the play, the coming of the May Queen will always be a moment. In the first place, she is supposed to be a surprise. The returns of the voting are not public, though everybody has a suspicion. In the second place, she approaches from a distance along some vista. Twenty years ago she came up Prospect to be welcomed by May Day actors at the top. Now she comes down the hill and across the brook with her attendants - the petal-coloring of their costumes appearing among the trees along the winding path. She is greeted by some actor cued in from the May Day play, and she is crowned among the dancers in the pageant field. One of the most graceful of long-ago May Queens came riding up Prospect on a regal white palfrey to be welcomed in the greenwood by Robin Hood. A recent May Queen was sought by a messenger from the town of Hamelin because she had the Pied Piper's silver pipe in her possession. Would she bring the pipe to little lame Hans so that he could pipe the lost children back from the mountain? Gently the lovely May Queen gave the pipe to little Hans.
The May Queen has an exacting part to play, even more so than the role of humming success at Junior Promenade. The most versatile Prom star might be at all a good May Queen. But the chances are that a May Queen is pretty good at a Prom.