Advocate Review by H. A. Bellows '06

The present number of the Advocate has, first of all, the great and none too common merit of being worth reading. Whether it is worth preserving I am not so sure; but the articles on matters of immediate interest to Harvard men, of which the number is almost wholly made up, are certainly just now very much worth while. They express and stimulate ideas, and this statement is high praise. Dean Castle's answer to Mr. Lippmann's objections to the Freshman dormitory scheme is exactly what we have long been hoping for: a public defence, from a man intimately acquainted with the facts and conditions, of one of the most important and far-reaching changes made by the new administration. Dean Castle has summarized Mr. Lippmann's objections before replying to them, thereby enabling the reader to grasp both sides of the argument at the same time; and the article does more than anything hitherto published toward strengthening faith in the new plan.

How far malice played a part in the selection of a reviewer for a number containing a denunciation of proctors as useless encumbrances, it is hard to say. Mr. Angell points out truly that the proctor at present is something of an anomaly; but fails to show that he does enough harm to warrant his abolition. Nor does he demonstrate any marked benefits arising from a system of student control. Mr. McCouch's suggestion that proctors be also Freshman advisers is exceedingly well made. Such a combination of offices would certainly enable the proctor to be something more than an irritable night-policeman without turning him into the patronizing intruder that the present system sometimes leads him to become. The four reviews of the Dramatic Club plays are all commendably concise and clear; and combine the necessary amount of summary with criticism at once interesting to the public and helpful to the authors and performers. The "Oxford Impressions" article is entertaining and well written.

The one story does not amount to much, its attempts at cleverness being so forced that the reader is rather annoyed than amused. Of the two pieces of verse, Mr. Bynner's "Alma Mater" is too much condensed to seem like a simple expression of sincere emotion. Mr. Seeger's lines on the misfortune of being a poet are remarkably good, but, it is to be hoped, needlessly despairing.

It is excellent that a number of the Advocate should contain so many ideas of immediate significance to Harvard men; but it should be remembered that ideas can be conveyed in fiction as well as in the essay. And the editorials, of which one is inaccurate and the others add little to the material contained in the rest of the number, might easily be strengthened. But from the worst sin of a college paper--that of lack of ideas--this number of the Advocate is notably free; and now it only remains for the paper to make its stories and editorials as good as its essays.