INERTIA

The announcement that Professor Charles W. Kennedy of Princeton will be the referee of the Oxford-Cambridge-Harvard-Yale track meet next month comes as another proof of the amicable relations of official Princeton and Harvard. As chairman of the Princeton Board of Athletic Control Professor Kennedy has shown time and again since the break between the two institutions that his feelings toward Harvard are most cordial. There has been no lack of good will between him and Mr. Bingham.

With such evidence of friendliness among the directors of policy at the two universities the only conclusion can be that there is a bitter obstinacy somewhere in the ranks. Half of the student bodies at Harvard and Princeton has entered college since the rupture. It seems safe to say, therefore, that the number of obstructionists among them cannot be large, and that in the new college generation now beginning all record of the break will be forgotten.

Of the alumni it is not so easy to speak with assurance. It is hard for any university to ignore entirely the strident voices of some of the men of the nineties and the 'oughts and the 'teens. But it has been proved often enough that a small group of graduates may cripple any program of an institution by unintelligent opposition. Princeton and Harvard must continue to appear slightly absurd as long as some of their adherents persist in the mistaken zeal of self-righteousness.