THE BETTER PART OF VALOR

It has been the custom, the privilege and the honor, for incoming editorial boards to announce the arrival of a new era--one which, the young hopefuls are fond of asserting, bears close resemblancme to the millenium. The Yale Daily News, however, declares that it is abandoning this egotistic bombast: the new board offers no "elaborate platform"; conservatism will be the watchword, and the new editors will not rashly discard the traditions of the old.

This announcement would at first sight appear to shine like a good omen in a world of unweaned radicals. But examination proves it to be no more than a tardy sanity. "No more Reforms" signifies nothing, since reforms in the best sense result only from a desire to remove evils, and even the cheeriest optimist cannot hope to forestall all corruptions. The News' resolve to avoid platforms is praiseworthy, only because such platforms are usually a collection of meaningless sentences.

An undergraduate daily which limits itself merely to news, and closes its columns to thoughtful innovation is on the way to becoming a gazette of events--an admirable thing in itself but hardly as interesting as a more inclusive sheet. Undoubtedly the first function of a newspaper is, as the Yale paper says, "to purvey news." An almanac, however, performs the same duties but almanacs seldom hold the reader tense. "No more reforms" is a neat phrase; but heaven help an unformed formed Yale.