ELIMINATION

In the midst of the great volume of discussions and criticism of the student apathy toward time-honored customs and activities which loomed large in the college life of earlier days, it is a little remarkable that no direct handling of the problem of what traditions might be dispensed with and what are strong enough to warrant their continuance has been tried. The custom which is losing undergraduate support has been left to a process of slow dying which is painful to many observers who cherished it.

An attempt, however, at such direct handling has been made by the Yale student council recently in connection with the small vote east in the election of the committee which supervises the annual junior class dance. In the future at Yale all elections for committees in charge of traditional activities must muster two-thirds of the class as voters if the custom is to be continued. The ruling provides both a check upon undergraduate feeling toward the custom and a means of eliminating it if interest is lacking.

Yet this percentage is a little drastic to apply to Harvard. Red Books, managerships, Student Councils run on and on, and though they lack the fine flavor of campus prestige that once surrounded them, they have a harmless, and often a pleasant place, in the slowly disintegrating entity of Harvard life.