MURDOCK PRAISES ADVOCATE

The Advocate has never announced itself as the purveyor of "the best" literary work done in the University, nor does the current number give it any basis on which to make such a claim. Possibly its editors believe that what we need most is not a monthly selection of the most perfect undergraduate work; possibly they are more anxious to publish material reflecting the type of writing most undergraduates like to do and expressing the thoughts they like to think, and, very possibly, they believe this is the nearest possible approach to what seems to be the unattainable ideal of a truly representative Harvard literary magazine.

Great Variety of Material.

If this is the theory on which they proceed, the current number of the Advocate is a success. The material ranges in subject from ghosts to British Guiana, and from prohibition to joy rides. Nearly everywhere there is clear thought and clear expression--occasionally there is distinction, and only rarely, real mediocrity. A reading of the whole number conveys very much the impression given by an afternoon spent in "good talk"--if such an afternoon were possible--with a group of active and well-informed undergraduates of no type and confined to no one set of ideas. Perhaps here is a step toward the representative magazine we talk so much about.

Mr. LaFarge writes "To Frederic Schenck". The value of the poem is in the feeling it expresses toward its subject; a value marred only by the frequent lapses in word or phrase from the exalted to the mediocre. Possibly a simpler form might have left the evident sincerity of the work freer to be felt, but as it stands we may be grateful for the poem. The same difficulty with external form bothers the author of "Ghosts", and the reader is jolted out of whatever enjoyment he might derive from this treatment of an old theme. "The Gallows Thing" is the most satisfactorily executed poem in the number, and rings true as some of the other scattered verse does not.

Mr. McVeagh discusses prohibition in much the manner of the adept writer of theses, but with evident thoughtfulness, which makes his work readable and often highly interesting. "The Beaver"--a character study of a most likable beaver--is well written, Mr. Strouts' "Problem of Economics" is admirable of its kind, and Mr. Munsey's translation "From the Spanish" has a quality unusual in undergraduate publications. Possibly the other prose in the number does not attain the standard set by these three, but all of it is readable, and none of it is without interest as representative undergraduate production.

Deplores Compulsory Classes.

The real excitement in the number is Mr. McVeagh's "Horrible Suggestion" that compulsory attendance at all college classes be abolished. Whatever "horror" there may be in the plan, is mitigated by the lightness and persuasiveness of the plea. Surely here is bait for discussion, and no undergraduate harassed by the office should be without this able docu- ment. Possibly the office itself should be supplied with copies. In any case, it is to be hoped more may be written on the various sides of the subject.

The representative magazine is not yet; the anthology of Harvard's "best" is-still unborn, but the Advocate is awake and doing its share toward letting us know what the majority of undergraduates can and do write; and, it is to be hoped, read. Possibly the isolated genius does not flourish in these pages, and perhaps there are here no signs of that rara avis, the average student. But infallibly there is worth-while work from men blessed with ideas and ability to express them