A CUSTOM THAT SHOULD BE REVIVED.

In 1904 the custom was started of observing at the regular Appleton Chapel services on November 29 the anniversary of the birth of John Harvard. Evidently the usage did not long continue, for such a service has not been held within the memory of the present College generation. The tercentenary celebration two years ago brought the life and services of the great benefactor before the public as well as the University in most complete fashion, but that too will soon have passed beyond any but occasional recollection.

The figure of the man whose dying legacy to posterity included nothing which will last as long or be known as widely as his name is one of the least distinct of those which stand out in our colonial history. Almost all that we known of him is that in a time when the attention of most men was centred on the material things of life he saw the coming need of educated men who should be ready to replace the then leaders of the people, and for the satisfaction of that need he gave his money and his books--small gifts according to our present standards but large in a generation when both were scarce.

Surely it would be but justice to his memory for the University to maintain some simple ceremony which should recall each November the life of the obscure clergy man, who, dying early in life, left here the foundation of such a splendid monument. The decoration each year by the Memorial Society of the statue near Memorial Hall is a graceful act, but a notice of John Harvard's birthday in the services maintained by the University would be an official recognition which the significance of the day in this community seems to demand.