The Off Season

The intelligence of Harvard, personified by the ten best scholars of that institution, remains undefeated and uncontested for at least another year. The Harvard authorities, after many attempts, have been unable to find a single European or American college which desires to compete for the prize, having sent invitations to Cambridge, Yale, and Princeton.

The reasons why the various universities declined to enter the contest this year have not been divulged, but it seems that the only thing Harvard will lose by this is a considerable amount of publicity. It is doubtful whether many people took last year's culture battle as anything but a huge joke, and the final outcome had little significance outside of resulting in a gain of $5,000 for the Harvard English department.

As a competitive prize in the field of literature, or in any one department of learning, the idea is wholly acceptable, but as a contest to ascertain the relative amounts of culture in one university and another, it is meaningless. It is to be hoped that the inactivity forced on the wits this season will not seriously impair their cerebral accomplishments so that we may look forward to another illuminating and amusing showdown in the future. Cornell Sun.