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well was a gauge of competence, a badge of manhood.”
    In his history of the school, Brooks Mather Kelley described Yale’s class of 1917 as “more interested in their games, newspapers, sports and societies than . . . the curriculum.” That could have been written to describe Samuel Bush’s son. Socializing was a big part of college life for Prescott, who volunteered for Interfraternity Council, Junior Prom Committee, and Class Day Committee. “To Have Made Friends” was listed by the class of 1917 as the “Most Valuable Thing Obtained from College.”
    Prescott began scaling Yale his first week on campus. Singing was a cherished college tradition, so he immediately joined the Yale Glee Club, the Yale Quartet, and the Yale Men’s Choir. In his senior year he was selected second bass for the Whiffenpoofs. “Life is but one song,” he told the
Yale Daily News
. By then, he had become known as the hottest close-harmony man Yale had seen in twenty-five years.
    “Prescott loved music,” said Richard D. Barrett (Yale 1953). “He was made of music. That was the core of his character—his love of singing. He was happiest when he was singing . . . and he had a wonderful booming voice, a marvelous bass that he loved using. After he left Yale, he formed a group, all Yalies, of course, called the Silver Dollar Quartet that sang for years. When they died, Prescott found us and formed another group called the Kensington Four. He craved singing and was never without song.”
    In a 1957 letter Prescott sent to Yale about the Silver Dollar Quartet, he said the group had been performing for thirty-five years:
    We began in 1922. For many years we made pilgrimages to Mory’s to sing with the Whiffenpoofs. In the thirties we formed the Yale Glee Club Associates and planned and conducted its meetings in New York until I resigned as president, thinking a change of leadership would be helpful.
    We introduced many a song at Yale. They still sing many of our songs even if they have changed arrangements and tempi in some to conform with their more modern tastes.
    Despite interruptions such as World War II when General Spofford [Charles M. Spofford, 1924] joined Eisenhower’s staff and later went to preside over NATO . . . for most of each year we still carry on at every opportunity.
    Prescott reveled in group activities. He pledged Psi Upsilon fraternity and joined the College Christian Association as well as the Young Men’s Christian Association of Dwight Hall. He fit easily with the 347 students of his freshman class, most of whom were white Anglo-Saxon Protestant preppies. A profile of that class emerges from their answers to a questionnaire.
    The fathers of 149 students had graduated from a university, and 58 of those had graduated from Yale. More than half of the fathers had not graduated from any college. Prescott’s father had graduated from Stevens Institute of Technology with a degree in engineering, so that placed Prescott in the educated minority of his class. The class of 1917 listed football as their favorite sport, Douglas Fairbanks as their favorite actor, and Maude Adams as their favorite actress. Alfred, Lord Tennyson was their favorite poet, and “Crossing the Bar” their favorite poem. Their favorite writer was Charles Dickens, their favorite novel
Lorna Doone
, and they said English was the most valuable subject. The person they admired most in history was Abraham Lincoln, which may account for the 227 students who listed themselves as Republicans.
    The twenty-two Catholics, fifteen Methodists, ten Jews, nine Baptists, and one Buddhist in the class defined its religious diversity. Racially, there was no diversity; the entire class was Caucasian. A majority of the students said they used tobacco and alcohol, and 113 had traveled abroad by the time they arrived at Yale, but Prescott was not one of them.
    When the class wrote its history shortly before graduation, they voted on those who had “Done Most for