"CODFISH CABOT" COMES TO HARVARD

Scarcely a year goes by in Cambridge without the appearance of some new literary venture. Those who follow such things will remember "Alice in Cambridge", of course, and will have heard of or seen the parody of the Harvard Magazine, the "Aristocrat", and "Proictaplan", the red-ink "Gadfly", and, last year the "Eight Most Harvard Poets". And now another is added to the list.

"Little Codfish Cabot" is essentially a satire, a satire that manages to include in one brief sweep all that goes to make up a certain type of Harvard education, with the exception, naturally, of studies. It is here that the sponsors of the book make their only mistake; for in portraying a single type as perhaps representative of the whole, they have laid themselves open to attack. Everyone does not misuses the Freshman Jubliee, or consider probation normal; and it is my guess that there will be some who will say so. But yet there is sufficient truth in the book, and sufficient discrepancies in the objects of its satire, to warrant its existence.

If it were only a satire of individual onuses, however, it would be unsuccessful in what is its most popular function--to amuse. But it is not. Its range is broad enough to touch at one point or another nearly every one of the Harvard men who will road it. All paths in Cambridge meet at certain common crossroads; and the author and illustrator have been quick to see that fact and utilize it. They do it well, and in so general a way that the book, will pass current for a good length of time. Unlike "Alice", this book does not depend upon the knowledge of special characters and characteristics-it has made use of traditions and of the apparently unvarying experiences through which undergraduates pass. This is its strongest point, and its best claim to longevity.

Technically, it is built in the style of the "Peter Rabbit" series-a few lines or print hand in hand with an illustration on every page. Both prose and pictures are good, for, though not always exceptionally funny, they-catch very well indeed the spirit which they are meant to give. And, what is more, they are of the sort that stick in the reader's memory long after he has put the book aside. The 'Friday Evening", for example, or the single meal at Memorial Hall, might easily become historic. Nor do I think that anyone at all acquainted will Cambridge could road the book without chuckling-perhaps somewhat thoughtfully. Whether the book itself will become a tradition it is not possible to say. It ought to-but we have so many "oughts" here already. However that may be, it will give many people some amusing hours-and it will prove that Mr. Ordway and Mr. Saunders have learned a good deal about the serious business of being humorous.