ILLUSTRATED UNDER REVIEW

Poor Elective System! You are hampering the individual and so the Illustrated takes an editorial fall out of you. But the Illustrated states a forceful case against your "paternalistic Group System and Faculty advisers" to which many Harvard men will demand an answer. The reviewer heard Mr. Burton Kline '06 when he spoke on Harvard and the press and knows from experience that his statement of Harvard's professorial ill-treatment of reporters is as true as it is interesting. R. L. West '14 has given us a good deal of inside information on the training of debating teams to what he calls the "Harvard Habit of Winning Debates." But he has uncovered what we might name the Institute's family skeleton, since, from the behaviour of its present members, we judge that they are ashamed of the fact that such questions as the relative merits of Napoleon and Cromwell were ever argued between its walls. The article on Princeton Customs, by Mr. Hunter of the Nassau Literary Magazine, is interesting enough to members of this staid old College where Rinehart nights are the chief vulgar amusement. But even at Princeton, customs are following in the path of Bloody Monday Night, which leads us to believe that Harvard is not alone so priggishly indifferent to youthful effervescence after all. "The Function of P. B. K." (if the printer has no Greek letters, why can't it be written Phi Beta Kappa?) sounds learned; but we advise Mr. Potter, when writing for our lay minds, to write simply. He is absolutely right in what he says, but he should strive to put the spirit which carries conviction into his words. Of Battery A. Mr. Chandler '14 has given us an enlightening account. He has succeeded not by the use of well-written English, but by that very spirit of interest which Mr. Potter lacked. "Harvard Men in American Painting" does no little credit to C. H. Smith '15 for the material which he has collected. The tribute to President Lowell reprinted from the Wisconsin Magazine makes pleasant reading for us who have known him as President. Wrestling receives due attention from C. F. Maxwell '14 and P. Withington '09. And then D. R. Gray '15 bemoans the fact that a college graduate does not know the difference between a stock and a bond. His graduate must have lived before the Group System.

The writing in the current Illustrated is interesting; but it wants seriously the smoothness of good English and careful editing. The pictures for the number are excellent in subject, but they must be printed black on white before they will show to advantage. There is a subtle irony in the picture of two Yale men wading a river, entitled "The Harvard-Yale Cross-Country Run."

In short, there is little fault to be found in the subject matter of the January Illustrated; but more care should be used in its appearance and presentation