THE GRAIN AND THE CHAFF

A glance around any modern bookshop is proof that current literature is far greater in amount than the average reader can hope comfortably to taste, to chew, or to digest. The student in Harvard naturally feels somewhat at a loss which way to turn when presented with such a volume of reading matter. The value of some sort of selection in this maze of books seems obvious.

Three Harvard professors, with the assistance of the Cooperative Society, have decided to continue the idea, started by the book clubs, of listing regularly a certain number of good books. These men will attempt to lead the local reader from the slough of words about him to the primrose heights of worth while reading.

It is to be regretted, however, that the committee plans to include only nonfiction on its list, and that its first selections would be almost wholly of interest to the scholar rather than the student. The former hardly needs a guide. But with so large a proportion of the finest modern authors using the drama and the novel as a medium, a little emphasis on the more human side of current literature would be of greater benefit to the vast majority of Harvard men than the scheme which the committee has evolved.