December Illustrated Readable

The December number of the Illustrated contains some unusually readable articles. Mr. Kline of the Boston Transcript finds in the subway a "drain-pipe" which is sucking from Cambridge the old concentrated spirit of culture. Harvard no longer remains "corked up at work." Perhaps the tube might also be termed a supply-pipe, which conducts into the otherwise closed academic corporation the culture of Boston; and in view of the recent large vote for license in the metropolis, the flow still promises to be as much into Cambridge as out of it. Formerly, Mr. Kline tells us, the student would sit down "in moments of depression and be relieved of his sorrow in a poem or a story for the Illustrated." Does he not still give scope to his feelings in the college literary magazines? Let us only hope that nowadays the undergraduate public does not read his effusions, excellent as they may be. The college literary magazine is made to be written, not read; the healthiest sign of collegiate life nowadays is the widening of interests to include the maturer world.

E. E. Hagler, Jr., '16 defends the apparent change of front of certain present advocates of preparedness under the title, "The Pacifist Armed." He points out that conditions have changed, but he seems to forget that wise men not only change their minds, but that they may,--and in the normal course of events do,--graduate. Mr. Larrabee in an article on college journalism finds that undergraduate publications do not lay inordinate stress upon athletics, and that the student's desire for such reading matter in his less concentrated hours does not show a lack of proportion in his interests; and thrusts the question of lopsidedness back upon the athletes who provide the show. It may still be doubted, however, whether the all-absorbing two months' football season does not create too great a hiatus in serious work.

Those who were living under the fear that Radcliffe wished peace-at-any-price are sweetly reassured in an article by "Radcliffe '17," called "What Radcliffe Thinks of Preparedness." Radcliffe wants peace, but--being modernly feminine--is concerned more with study preparation for war than with aiding the Red Cross or advancing the normal social work of women in peace. At least, they tend to refute a fear expressed in the New York Times yesterday that equal suffrage means war in which we will not have a ghost of a chance to succeed. Finally, there appears an article on "Celestial Photography at the Harvard Astronomical Observatory" which must be interesting.

The editorials are numerous but lack thought. In their determination to be chatty and readable the editors have failed to penetrate to the core of their subjects. It is, for example, rather ludicrous to explain "why men go to Michigan" solely on the ground that the Harvard Christmas vacation is too short! And the suggestion that the Register take it upon itself to describe the qualifications of professors savors of the business college prospectus. The editorial on "The Hibernating Forum" is almost the only one containing a vigorous idea.

The photographs are varied and uniformly excellent. Delicious but a trifle unkind is the picturing of Miracle-Man Shevlin over the words "Harvard 41. Yale 0." This counterbalances the patronizing and pious editorial wish that the Bull Dog may be "resuscitated.