THE MUSICAL CLUB'S TRIP.

It is to be regretted that the Musical Clubs can not take as long a Western trip as had been planned, for Harvard graduates living beyond the Mississippi have little opportunity to come into contact with our College organizations. How to maintain their interest in the University, and how to attract more students from the western half of the country are problems, the solution of which has only been begun in the last few years by renewed activity on the part of University officials.

The pleasure of the members of the clubs is one of the least important aspects of the trip, nor do we imagine that this consideration weighed heavily with the Faculty when it gave its consent to the undertaking. To bring the graduates in a few cities together, to let them hear at first-hand of affairs in Cambridge, and to show to others who have never had the good fortune to come here that Harvard is not wholly devoted to the publication of new philosophical doctrines or astronomical theories are a few of the intangible benefits to be derived.

Years ago these vacation trips were an annual event, and then for a long period they were forbidden by the Faculty. Two years ago the Faculty was persuaded to allow a resumption of the custom. Tradition says that i the early days the undergraduates who constituted the clubs were not always as careful as they might have been in their observance of the proprieties, and in consequence the Western graduates were forced to ask that no more visits be allowed. That conditions have greatly changed since that time, the success of the 1907 trip is sufficient proof, and it is for those who go this year to strengthen the good impression which has been created.