In boarding school, tradition seemed to be centred on the Protestant, mini-Ivy league, Sperry-sporting culture that prospered on the New England campus. Every Thursday evening, the Headmaster invited a “form,” or grade, to his house for something called “Parlour.” He and his wife would welcome us with soft chocolate chip cookies and milk. In the winters during Parlour, we would play board games by a roaring fire. My friends and I would walk around the living room ogling at the photographs of old graduates on the walls, flip through yearbooks from a century ago and go back to the cookie table for seconds. There were sit-down dinners, prefects, handshaking before going to bed, letters from U.S. presidents lining the School House, “Surprise Holidays” every semester, and so many traditions that we accepted as standard.
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I’d like to take a look at Kensuke Ishizu’s book “Take Ivy” (1965), as it contains some beautiful photographs of Brown pre-hipsterville—what many people in and outside the institution perceive it to be. This book is the product of a grand Ivy League tour taken by three writers and a Japanese photographer, documenting and analysing the style of students who called their respective schools their second home. Are we less “Ivy” than Harvard, Cornell, Dartmouth? Has Brown lost its “Ivy-ness,” or the Ivy tradition?Â
NB: Rain is an important and lasting tradition at Brown, as well.Â