THE HARVARD "AGGIES"

The thought that sport writers would be justified in using some such term as the above was quite enough to arouse ire in the breasts of undergraduates when Professor East's program was first outlined. The misleading reports in various newspapers yesterday contributed to this resentment. To follow the establishment of a great and very materialistic Business School with a huge and very practical School or Dirt Farming is a development they do not relish. It now appears that the suggestion is not as wild and impractical as it at first appeared.

To coordinate existing facilities--the Arnold Arboretum, the Herbarium, the University Museum, the Bussey Institute, the department of biology--into an academic organization which will foster scientific research into agricultural problems is an improvement for which there is apparently a real need and to which there can be no valid objection. Professor East's recommendation states clearly, however, that "it must not be thought that the carrying out" of such suggestions "will make Harvard the place for graduate study in agriculture that it ought to be." His further recommendation that $12,000,000 be expended to make Harvard such a place does seem to carry his views to the point of absurdity.

With the need of the College for funds to develop its tutorial system, definitely established and constantly restated, it is reasonable to hold that the next appeal for endowments should be directed for its benefit. Already there is complaint against overemphasis on graduate school development. It has been suggested that the agricultural endowments would come from institutions and men not interested in any other phase of Harvard's development; yet $12,000,000 is a sum so huge that its collection would be impossible without a general appeal to graduates.

If in some future time of prosperity all other financial needs of the University are satisfied, the question of a highly developed agricultural school may justly be considered. Even then men will question the wisdom of developing even a graduate school of agriculture in the most highly industrialized section of the country. Only so far then as Professor East's report recommends coordination of existing facilities and their proper upkeep can it meet with approval. Other departments of the University have a prior claim to expansion.