Scholarships?

To the Editor of the CRIMSON:

The movement against the erection of a World War Memorial Chapel in the Yard would gain more weight, it seems to me, if its sponsors were able to offer a suitable alternative plan. The problem really is, how best to spend the eight hundred thousand dollars the alumni have raised. The memorial should be useful and fitting, and if there is anything at all to be learned from Harvard's experience in the past, it is that neither chapels nor barn-memorials fill either of those requirements.

There are many conceivable alternatives, a memorial class room building, a really useful and much needed auditorium, a skating rink or a new boat house. All these meet the apparent demand for architectural tangibility and at the same time are permanent and important contributions to the University's equipment and have a more nearly universal appeal.

But it seems to me that the most useful and fitting plan of all would be to establish a group of scholarships and fellowships to meet the increase in living expenses which the House Plan has brought about. There are numerous precedents for such action, the Lionel de Jersey Harvard. Victor Emmanuel Chapman, and Bayard Cutting Fellowships in particular. They lack concreteness, perhaps, but there may be some among the alumni to whom a memorial is something more than the mere piling of one brick on top of another in a successful attempt to outdo in uselessness all previous war memorials. A World War Memorial Scholarship and Fellowship Fund could never be the laughing stock of Cambridge, it would fill a pressing need, and would materially aid the teaching of the arts of peace. J. J. Horton '31.