AN EASTER VACATION.

Years ago when Fast Day was a legal holiday in Massachusetts, the University held its spring recess at that time. When Fast Day was dropped from the list of regularly observed holidays, Harvard selected the week of April nineteenth for the recess. It was then thought to be most advantageous to have the vacation at a fixed rather than a varying period of the year. To us, today, however, there seem other more important considerations than absolute regularity, which should bear on the choice of the time for the vacation. Those students who live in Boston or Cambridge or nearby find present conditions perfectly satisfactory, but those who live at a distance find that except in those years when the recess week happens to coincide with Easter week, their holidays amount to little more than a period of isolated inactivity.

By common consent Easter, primarily a church festival, has marked the opening of a period of social activity. Most of the schools and colleges of the country, whether sectarian or not, have acknowledged this fact and ordained their holidays accordingly. Harvard is one of the notable exceptions. Harvard students who go to homes outside Massachusetts for the week of April nineteenth find that their Yale and Princeton friends and those who are at other institutions have had their good times and are now back at work. The festivities of Easter week have passed, while Harvard with supreme indifference kept them at work. Then when all the real opportunities for a thoroughly enjoyable vacation are past Harvard sends them home to spend a week in solitary grandeur. Yet Harvard, we are told, is doing its best to foster interest among students in all parts of the country, particularly in the South and West.

Perhaps it is too late to urge that this year's vacation be put at Easter time on account of the baseball games already scheduled for the latter week. This difficulty could be avoided very easily next year. By continuing a policy which ignores the recognized prevalance of Easter vacations Harvard gains very little material advantage for herself, but vitiatates to a great extent the value and enjoyment of the spring vacation for a great many students.