THE WOODEN HORSE OF TROY

The sporadic threats of a new war memorial chapel to replace Appleton have once more started to rustle through labyrinths of Harvard. These innuendos rise and fall with the regularity of a tooth ache coming from a sore spot long known but little attended to. Behind the curtain that obscures the actual facts there remains one substantial fact, and that is that at present there are funds in the hands of a committee, but this money is inadequate.

What the nearing completion of the House Plan, it is probable that these latest rumblings indicate a new vigor. Money for purposes other than building dormitories will again be available and the chapel project must necessarily receive a new vitality. The known facts of the true situation are characteristically vague beyond the fact that the new edifice will occupy most of the space between Widener and Appleton chapel and that it is supposed to be built on a scale to "balance" the library.

Reputable architects have said that such a building would be highly "unfortunate". Of course, this opinion could not be taken as better than that of the present University architects who have succeeded in finding places for so many buildings in the Yard. Nevertheless it is not entirely negligible. As for the necessity and desire for such a building, it is obvious, that only a small minority want it. If a war memorial is to be built there is no reason why it could not be something that is generally desirable and placed somewhere other than in the already crowded Yard. Before this innuendo suddenly springs into an unexpected and distasteful reality it certainly should be modified by the disapproving wishes of the large majority of Harvard men, graduates and undergraduates.