THE ROAD TO UNDERSTANDING

The appointment this morning of a full-time, full-pay director of publicity for the Harvard Athletic Association is the cap stone of what perhaps in future years, will come to be looked upon as the outstanding achievement of William a Bingham as Harvard's athletic director. To Mr. Ryan should go the best wishes of every cpligatened Harvard man, to the athletic director the credit for an openness which is sadly lacking in most of Harvard's official relations with the press.

When he entered office, Mr. Bingham created a sensation among the newspaper fraternity by treating them as human beings. This was something new to Harvard correspondents and casual newspaper visitors. For some reason or other, Mr. Bingham didnot seem to fear that he would be stabbed in the back, that he would be systematically betrayed. He spoke frankly with the reporters, nor is there any evidence to show that he ever had cause to regret his frankness. At least, Mr. Bingham, far from adopting a defensive policy, continues to place in the newspapermen with whom he comes into contact, complete confidence as regards his utterances and a politeness, which far from being servile fawning, marks him as a gentleman.

It can hardly be truthfully said that Harvard sports and Harvard have suffered through what is nothing more than an application of the Golden Rule. There was a time when the mention of a Harvard team was the automatic signal for loud guffaws, and this entirely aside from the merit of the team in question. Whenever athletic Harvard became embroiled in a public controversy per opponent got the sympathy of the press and therefore the goodwill of the public. Now Harvard gets at least her fair share of public goodwill as far as her athletics are concerned, and since even Harvard alumni read the papers, this very important body is well disposed towards its Alma Mater, willing to kick in when the various appeals are made from Lehman Hall.

Contrast Mr. Bingham's tactics with those of President Lowell. President Lowell will not speak to newspapermen on any subject. Harvard, he says, does not need to advertise. No one will quarrel with him on this point; not, certainly, Mr. Bingham. But people are interested in Harvard, among them 80,000 graduates. Even if they are given no information they should at least he spared the misapprehensions and the irritations which are the natural outcome of misinformation. Mr. Lowell cannot hope to keep Harvard out of the papers any more than the assistant football manager can hope to suppress the Harvard football news. And even if he could, it is by no means certain that Harvard would benefit therefrom.

Daily the university is the scene of happenings which affect the outside world. It is false modesty to pretend that the discoveries of Harvard scientists are not of interest to outsiders, that the plans of the oldest and richest university in the country are of no import except to the handful of men who are charged with administering her affairs.

Harvard, literally, has lost thousands of dollars worth of goodwill through her contemptuous attitude towards the daily press. She has lost, besides, the enrolment of hundreds of worthy men who have been attracted to other universities as a result of misrepresentations in the press and popular traditions fire of such misrepresentations. Her endowment, furthermore has lost very substantial sums from graduates who have been outraged by unfavorably colored news.

In the face of such a record, it is not a question of whether Harvard needs publicity. The question is can are ailed to do without publicity? Donations she can but at a price which is prohibitive. The Harvard Athletic Association far from being the stave of the press by treating it intelligently has become in a sense, its master. And it is high time that University Hall stopped quaking at the thought of a reporter and having nothing to hide come out in the open.