"LAME DUCKS!"

In asking that sons of Harvard graduates be given a ten per cent, advantage over other applicants for admission to the University, the columnist of the Harvard Graduates Magazine has probably mistaken his public. That most graduates prefer to send their sons to their own college is certain enough--but that Harvard graduates would care to see their own sons pulled or pushed through the gates in preference to more capable sons of "less fortunate nativity" operating under their own power, is extremely doubtful.

Sentimentally, the idea of generation after generation of Harvard graduates returning their sons to Cambridge, already steeped in the classic legends and traditions of the University is very appealing. The student likes to imagine his own sons associating with those of his college friends. But it is rather an affront to Harvard men to assume that their progeny will not be well enough qualified to compete for admission on equal terms with everyone else.

The writer of "From a Graduate's Window" goes on to say that with the struggle for entrance to the University intensified to an unprecedented extent by the limitation of numbers, the prospect "is not encouraging for those Harvard men who know that their sons are not pre-eminent in scholarship, athletics or school leadership, but are sure they are good material for the college." It might be suggested that these fond parents allow their paternal pride to overrule their better judgment--and that it is difficult to see just what athletic eminence has to do with the New Plan examinations. But extraordinary brilliance will never be required for admission to Harvard; and as the sons of graduates have apparently inherited sufficient intelligence to follow their fathers in the past, it seems hardly necessary or appropriate that they be branded "lame ducks" and "helped over the stile" in the future.