THE BOOK OF NUMBERS

Notwithstanding the glory of the CRIMSON, the perusal of which is axiomatic and an obvious correlary to membership in the University; of the Lampoon, which may be either taken or left, neither process involving much thought; of the Advocate, prehistoric and unruffled, and of a host of other publications, there is one which unofficially welcomes the incoming Freshman and which is therefore extremely important. Like many other good things, however, the Phillips Brooks Harvard Handbook, inevitably referred to as his Freshman Bible, receives less praise than it merits.

What newly matriculated student, as yet ignorant of both Harvard and Cambridge has not pondered heavily over the involutions of the map which graces the booklet, wondering if streets called straight have any place geographically in the maze which surrounds Harvard Square? Who has not opened to the rules and regulations of the University to find that the first is that all football games except that with Yale are played in the Stadium? What eye has not rapidly scanned the list of Important Dates in the college year, starting with that of registration and blithely swooping over the months to the far distant Commencement? It is the first real bond felt by the Freshman, is this juvenalia, for it is much more personal and more intimate than the frigidity of the application blanks and schedules which trickle from University Hall all during the summer.

The upperclassman, bereft of the system which bound him to his firstyear mates, wonders where the Handbook has disappeared, and why its use is restricted to Freshman. For a time he misses it-he is at a loss to discover the final date for this, the opening date for that, the time of the next rapprochement of the Harvard Dames, and many interesting minutiae which fill the pages of the book. But there is no Sophomore Bible and eventually comes the realization that the Phillips Brooks House has rendered to Freshmen the things that are Freshmen's and who-soever shall seek must find his information elsewhere.