PARTIAL COMMEMORATION

The time has come for Appleton Chapel to go the way of all material things. It is not the passing of the edifice that is to be regretted, for the structural decay of the present chapel is rapidly rendering the building unsafe. But the loss of much that Appleton represents is suffered with varied feelings of regret.

To many, the existing chapel is the last remnant of the old Harvard and is regarded with a veneration peculiar to the alumni who disapprove of the wholesale termination of Harvard traditions. But the deeper significance of the demolition of Appleton is more than the mere replacement of the old by the new.

The undergraduates and many alumni have freely expressed their abhorrence of any memorial of war which should rise in the place of Appleton. And further, with such a memorial forced upon them, they have petitioned against discrimination among the sons of Harvard and requested unvitiated commemoration for three German soldiers from Harvard who died for their country before the United States entered the war. But the Corporation decreed that these men were not Harvard men and have no place on the roll of honor because they fought for the wrong country. And the Corporation found justification for its decision in a sort of occult interpretation of the unexpressed opinions of the donors who contributed funds for the new chapel. Those who gave money to the President and Fellows of Harvard College for the purpose of building and endowing a University Church never passed judgment on the question of commemorating the names of those who died for the Central Powers. No opportunity for their doing so has been offered by the Corporation.

Until the donors themselves have expressed their desires as to whether their money should be used for a memorial of Harvard war dead or to commemorate the cause of the Allies, the world cannot believe that they wish to build a University Church which refuses to recognize three former members of the University. If the Corporation should urge that the donors relinquished direction of the use made of their contributions, it must accept full responsibility for a decision which is odious to the majority of Harvard men.

Though the new chapel be beautiful; though it harmonize satisfactorily with the physical aspect of the Yard, its builders and its givers may not expect whole-hearted thanks or support from Harvard's undergraduates, faculty, and alumni whose sensibilities are outraged by the deliberate decree of the Corporation. Nor can there be untrammeled prayer in a chapel which seems not to recognize an impartial God.

A new chapel there must be. But let it be a new Appleton, a church rising on the same principles as the old Appleton in which those three men of Harvard came to pray before returning to their fatherland to cast their lives away and lose, it seems, their right to be called sons of Harvard.