SOPHOMORIC PORNOGRAPHY

To draw the line between that which is collegiate in the sense of College Human and Judge Jr., and that which is only the irrepressibility of youth is very difficult. The danger of being too sober and too sane is evenly matched by the danger of being inane and hysterical. The distinction between the decent and the indecent, however, is much easier and requires no leaf critical genius. There are actions and trivolities which are inexcusable even when done in the name of boyish press and of good clean fun.

This week has seen the beginning of a series of public initiations to an old and distinguished society which has long flourished in Harvard College the Hasty Pudding-Institute of 1770. If the spectacle afforded by these exhibitions is to be regarded as typical of the organization's attitude and sense of humor then one can only sigh for the return of a more puritanical regime. That these displays have any claim to respectability there can be no question: they are disgusting, vulgar,--they are nauseating. They only excuse for their presence is the laughter which they might evoke. And this fall, the climax of several years of increasingly disagreeable spectacles, even the opportunity for that excuse has disappeared. Never, not even in the cheapest of cheap vaudeville houses, has the public--the general public in and around Harvard Square and the University public--been offended with such common antics, more suitable to Moronia than a supposedly intelligent community.

It is all very well to pardon the culprits by saying that they are following a tradition. But traditions whose outward demonstrations are as puerile as are these have no place in the University. No accumulation of years can sanctify them. And it seems impossible that this particular variety of Jow burlesque could have been practised in Cambridge for over one hundred and fifty years. Certainly these exhibitions must originally have been more humorous and not so scurrilous.

Omitting all reference to the desirability of any sort of public revelry in connection with the name of Harvard one may confine himself to a discussion of the decency of the affair. Enough has been said--perhaps too much--concerning Harvard's penchant for the quiet, the restrained, the indifferent. The CRIMSON firmly believes, however, that if any attitude is typical of the University it is this one. The chasm of trite collegiatism is too deep to warrant any precarious flirtations with its slopes.

To the moral aspect, therefore, the objector may well confine himself; it betrays a sufficient number of facts for discussion; on it alone may a solid case be built. Does inviolate tradition condone all? Does an air of the sacrosanct vindicate every blemish on the tabernacle? The reply is obviously one which must bow to the canons of good taste. Until the daily vaudeville ceases the public will be expected to stop, to stare, perhaps to snicker in adolescent fashion. But the public stops not to be entertained--these diversions have no relation to the word--but rather in amazement. In the haunts of the conventional, is to be found--the type of beguilement offered by a zoo.