EUROPE ACCESSIBLE

We study European men of letters; thumb their works; admire the artistic legacies of foreign painters and sculptors; trace the campaigns of their foremost military leaders; find our modern life more closely intertwined with that of England, France, and Italy than ever before: yet that last needed touch is denied many of us--that of seeing the contrasting environments in which these men lived and evolved their works.

Many men have painted and tarred their way across under the compassionate eye of a roaring bos'n. This method, states the consensus of their opinion, is more redolent of enjoyment than even a nightly two-some constitutional on a glass-enclosed hurricane promenade. Such opportunities are available, however, to but a fortunate few. The hale sea-captain who invitingly angles for candidates to enjoy his hospitality approaches a nonentity. Furthermore, this means has the disadvantage of uncertainty: without the most substantial influence, one must take his chance from day to day.

It is Mr. Edward A. Filene, Boston merchant, who casts a potential life-preserver. Why not, he asks the convened National Mercantile Marine Association, use our passenger-carrying ships in time of peace as we did in time of war? Give the people--he makes no specific reference to the unpolished student--give the people a chance to see the old countries at a cost which will not entail privation in ensuing years. Let them travel; comfortably, if minus the furbelows. Adopt the methods of our overseas troop transportation during the war.

Traveling as a passenger, one regretfully watches sufficient wherewithal to take a summer's continental tour disappear in the purchase of transportation. Often a strongly deterrent factor in acquiring the proper veneer! and we summer monotonously at Annisquam or Cape May.

The proposed idea is not wholly lacking in precedent. Last fall the Southern Pacific Railroad, in a spasm of benevolence, offered freight-car transportation to university students from California to Oregon and return at five dollars per man. In the past summer, the United American lines inaugurated a transatlantic service for ships for third-class passengers only. That the experiment has been a success is demonstrated by its continuance.

Mr. Filene's suggestion thus seems feasible. Most students would forego the non-essential gift, and a mere week's "hardship" is no hardship. European nations incidentally still embrace constitutional fallacies which serve but to intensify the alluring glamor of--well, say a summer about the Sorbonne.