THE YARD BEAUTIFUL.

Out of the thousand reasons which prevent individuals or institutions from doing exactly what they wish in this world, lack of money stands forth as preeminent. The institution of Harvard University is no exception. It wants many things, which would be foolish acquirements when the yearly reckoning of finances shows a deficit.

Thus with the Yard. What the University really wants is a Yard of all the stateliness and beauty of the days before the late elms began to fail. What it has, to supplant the lumbering scenes of the past week, are a great many ridiculous young shoots, interspersed among some more promising ones and a few saplings which have almost attained treehood. Of course there was a stateliness and beauty about the old Yard akin to the beauty of the English lawns that the gardener said required only three hundred years of care to procure. But there is a possibility, with sufficient funds, of giving the present Yard a more immediate promise of beauty than it now possesses. So a large number of small trees are now being planted, not because Professor Fisher believes that larger trees will not grow, but because there is not enough money to defray the planting of such trees. To place trees a foot in diameter would cost anywhere from $100 to $300 apiece. There is hardly enough money even to meet the demands for proper care of shrubbery and trees, let alone providing for new installations.

The appearance of the Yard is a more or less superficial feature of the University's welfare; but since the Yard is one of the famed beauties of Harvard, and since it stands in a way for Harvard, the prospect of its being barren for years to come is not unimportant. There has been agitation in the Alumni Bulletin to secure contributions from the various classes toward the placing of sizeable trees. The Alumni seem the only source of funds, and if after so many years of generosity they are still willing to lend their aid, it can be directed toward few better channels than the restoration of the once most beautiful part of Harvard to something of its former glory.