Review of Advocate by Dean Castle

It is pleasant to find that the Advocate intends in the future to pay more attention to the point of view section because a just criticism of college papers has always been that there is usually little suggestion of college about them. In the current number, for example, there are two letters on a subject of direct local and contemporary interest--the new method of assignment of rooms in Senior dormitories, these very letters, moreover, bringing out the point that articles in such a paper as the Advocate should be much more carefully thought out and should be expressed in a more nearly final form than are such letters in the CRIMSON. The Advocate should be able to contribute really helpful discussions in times of undergraduate stress of opinion whereas most attempts to rush into print through the medium of the CRIMSON are of the ill-advised and often a source of regret to their authors. On the question of Senior dormitories, Mr. Lewis gives earnestly, if not always convincingly, one view of one opposed to the new plan. His fear that it is undemocratic seems to be founded on the idea that it is always undemocratic for more than four men who like each other to want to room together. He also insists strongly on the lonely Senior and his need of meeting his fellows. One may grant the lonely Freshman but even under present lodging conditions our "lonely Senior" must be a very disagreeable person or at least one whose wish for friends is of abnormally late development. The editorial and the letter from S. B. Steel seem to answer many of the objections adequately and, as Mr. Steel says, the committee does not pretend to have made a perfect plan. It is a pity that this letter descends to a wholesale arraignment of the business methods of the last administration, a matter of which, since he was not a member of the Corporation, he can manifestly have no intimate knowledge.

Of the poems none stand out except the one by C. P. A., the second stanza of which would be especially charming were it not for the "paradisal snow." Mr. Gray's "Utopia" is not an improvement on Shakspere. The stories are rather slight sketches than stories. "His Valley" by H. B. Wehle is not effective because the one character lacks the terse expression that would make his story live. The descriptions--not by the old prospector--are overdrawn. The reader balks a little at the "clear scarlet sky" as other readers protested at Coleridge's sky with its "peculiar tint of yellow green." H. K. Moderwell's "By Night" has a vigor that makes one wish for more. "The Last Edition," by Wm. C. Green is an admirably told incident of the conflict between principle and financial need, principle winning less blatantly than is usual. "College Kodaks" are true but unpleasant, therefore belying the title since one tries to make permanent with a camera something that one wishes to remember.