A DANGER IN THE ENVIRONMENT.

It is usually the older generation which holds firm in well-grooved paths the car of progress; it is the younger men who supply much of the energy and who usually point out the new directions in which progress may move. With proper flexibility and sane guidance both perform a highly valuable function in civilization. But when conservatism becomes reactionary, and when radicalism becomes flighty, the car is in danger of losing its balance.

Says a Boston newspaper, commenting upon the efforts of certain pacifists to bring about peace: "The fiasco will show them that their quarrel is not with principalities and powers, but with the world they live in. They will discover that, with no other world available at present, it is the summit of wisdom to peg along prudently in this."

If that is the summit of wisdom, if we have come to College for the purpose of learning how best to peg along with things as they are,--then we have made a great mistake in choosing an institution which makes a speciality of cultural training, and which has departments of economics and government attempting to find ways to improve the world we live in. Certainly such organizations as the Socialist Club and the International Polity Club had best cease at once to dream dreams and see visions. More enlightened is the statement of another Boston newspaper that it does not propose to take part in the persecution of a project, however visionary, which has only good for its end.

If there is to be any enduring progress, it is imperative that younger men do not lose their originality, and enthusiasm for new ideas. In an institution such as this, where the stuff of life is thought, such intellectual relapses and stagnation are least excusable. Nevertheless, the University is situated in one of the few localities in this country in which a newspaper can advise its readers to be content to peg along in the world as it is.

The student who has any sincerity in his soul will see to it that he is not tainted with this smug spirit whose end is death.