THE EMPTY DINNER PAIL

"Charity begins at home" is at best an ambiguous phrase. Far clearer and far more true is it that realization exists only at home. The success of all drives for charity depends on the appeal, and it is perhaps for lack of a sufficient appeal that today, with only one more day to go, the Student Friendship Drive hangs between success and failure.

All foreign charities suffer from the fact that a man is affected more through his senses than his imagination. Dives never saw Lazarus. Nor did he, clothed in purple and fine linen, have the imagination to conceive of the pain of nakedness and sores. The undergraduate buttoning his overcoat as he hurries to a ten o'clock, may buy a pencil from the old woman crouching on the corner, but the rush of his daily activities blinds him to the starving students of distant Europe who subsist solely on bowls of soup and a tremendous inspiration to learn. Could those poor students march through Harvard Square as classes let out for the lunch hour, could they make their request, no matter how silent, in person, the silver would flow in rivers. It is all a question of realization.

"Are there no prisons?" asked Scrooge.

"Plenty of prisons," said the gentleman.

"And the Union Workhouses?" demanded Scrooge. "Are they still in operation?"

"They are," returned the gentleman. . . . "But many can't go there; and many would rather die."

"If they'd rather die," said Scrooge, "they had better do it and decrease the surplus population. Besides excuse me--I didn't know that."

Almost everybody who he reads the story at Christmas laughs, and laughs with a slight feeling of superiority. He is no Scrooge! But Scrooge was merely frank, and his absolute refusal was somewhat better than evasion. Even the "I don't know that" evasion however, is now impossible. The conditions have been presented for over two weeks, the request has been made. Giving is a question of appeal and convenience. If the appeal outweighs the inconvenience the gift is certain. And with a very slight use of the imagination, the European student is at the door. The undergraduate meets him as he goes to lunch. Will he not, as a fellow student and a gentleman, extend an invitation? Of a certainty--and today.