THE PRESIDENTIAL POLL

On Wednesday of next week the CRIMSON will open its fifth quadrennial poll of the Presidential leanings of the University. College, graduate schools, and faculty will be included in as comprehensive a survey as can be made.

Such a poll derives both interest and value from the circumstances of Election Day voting which completely effaces the separate identity of the University vote. To students themselves a tabulation of the political preferences of their associates cannot but be interesting.

To the outside world the trend of opinion in a large academic community should have a peculiar merit. Nowhere is sound information on political questions more readily obtainable, nowhere does freedom of thought meet more encouragement, nowhere are limited interests less active than in a university like Harvard.

Whether or not the colleges harbor the cream of the country's youthful intelligence, it is undeniable that they furnish a matchless environment for the formation of intelligent and disinterested political opinion. This factor, if no other, gives the results of a university poll, such as is now projected for Harvard, a distinct and unrivalled value.