ARE WE BEHIND THE GRADUATES?

During the past ten years there has arisen among Harvard graduates a tendency which has by this time developed into a habit all the more marked because of its spontaneity and its national character. In almost all the large cities in nearly every part of America, Harvard graduates have gravitated towards each other with the purpose of organizing Harvard clubs. Though, of course, these organizations are, on the surface, social, yet the real cause of their foundation is to be found in a far deeper motive. In the last analysis, all of them have been imbued with a most generous desire to spread farther the influence of the College and make its field of usefulness broader. Though animated by the same purpose, they have sought their end in different ways. Some have founded scholarships, some have given direct aid, and some have exerted their influence towards giving high school men an idea of the nature and the advantages of Harvard. The value of this national movement cannot be overestimated, and it is one of the greatest tributes that the graduates can pay to the College.

Today and tomorrow a large number of undergraduates will leave Cambridge for cities where just such organizations as these have been carrying on their work. Undergraduates must necessarily see the College from the undergraduate viewpoint, without being able to get a clear perspective of Harvard in its entirety. Those men who are going to distant cities have a peculiarly favorable opportunity to broaden their own views of the real significance and place of the University by contact with those graduates who have proved themselves the most loyal to Harvard, while at the same time bringing before the graduates the views and problems of the undergraduates and evincing a keen interest in this graduate movement. It is in this way that undergraduates can make of themselves the true Harvard men to whom the future of the University is so soon to be confided.