MEET! RAW MEET!

"What does the Student Council do?"--Undoubtedly one of the most embarrassing questions that can be asked of a Harvard undergraduate: If he stops to think at all he is obliged to say "Nothing." If he doesn't he can only answer:

"It meets."

In fact it has met off and on for fifteen years. On some notable occasions it has accomplished not a little--and has at such times been denied the deserved applause. But at best it is like the farmer in his rocker before the fire. "Sometimes he sets and thinks and sometimes he just sets." And "just setting" has been the prevailing activity of the Council for the past few years. Of late it is true there has been a faint sound of cackling suggestive of coming events, and the University awaits breathless and open-eyed for whatever results may come from tomorrow's meeting of the representative body.

Or does it? As a matter of fact it really does not. And what is more there is probably scarcely an undergraduate who would aspire to membership--except perhaps the Freshmen and transfer students who still suffer illusions. And for their information and comfort it might perhaps be safe to hazard a guess at what will transpire tomorrow.

The Council will meet. It will be called to order. The minutes of the last meeting will be read, ignored and approved. (But this is the lot of minutes.) The business of the meeting will be opened by a recommendation of X for numberals in backgammon. The whole checker team for A to Z will be recommended for their letters. So-and-so will be recommended for assistant whist manager. (These sports are taken at random to prove to the critics that Harvard is as decadent as they declare her to be.) Schedules will be read and approved. All recommendations of course, are subject to the approval of a higher committee. A few other questions will be discussed. Cigarettes will be lighted. Everyone will be bored. A few will begin to leave. The meeting will adjourn.--Well met, sir!

Perhaps this is not a true picture. Possibly it is an unfair one. But it is based on circumstantial evidence--the evidence of what recent Student Councils have failed to accomplish. And it not improbably approximates its picture in the minds of those whom the Council "represents"--in its own curious way. Yet the Council in, so acting would be merely fulfilling the University's expectations which have long since been shrivelled from lack of nourishment and even hope. For an impasse has been reached on rather a state of inertia, and there appears not even a Slayphus. Just as there is not one capable of stopping the seven o'clock bell there is probably no one capable of starting the Council.

Except the Council itself? Horrible thought--yet to dwell on it is to realize that most of the above is a lie, for it deals with the past, not with the present. In the mirror of their acts are seen the characteristics of former Councils, but while a mirror shows too well the ravages of the past if shows nothing of the future, for it takes no account of the possibilities of change within.

With a personnel of more than usual keenness and power, this year's Student Council has the ability to forsake its ancestral calling of contented self-effacement. From vague rumors it would seem that it has the desire. Desire and ability generally produce results.

Manana?