NEW FLOCK ON PARNASSUS

The new undergraduate publication, the "Harvard Critic," which was announced yesterday, may well come to fill a blank in the College's literary roster. The "Critic" will serve mainly as a month piece for opinions concerning Harvard policy and educational trends, as well as national affairs, a function which no existing local publication taken as the sole basis of its endeavors. The periodical will contain articles by men beyond the narrow pale of Harvard life, a field until recently untrod by undergraduate editors. The aim of the Critic's board will be to express all shades of opinion, and will shun a literary, highly intellectual flavor. The monthly evidently purposes to be in the thick of the battle, printing every side of the issues discussed, avoiding an ex cathedra tone.

In part the new policy of the Advocate, as evidenced by its first issue, already attempts to cover this ground. The Advocate, however, fills other functions which make it unfitted to be a controversial magazine, and if the editors of the Critic make the proper discriminations they need tread no more on the toes of the Mother than on those of the Atlantic Monthly. It is an organ of controversy that the Critic will best fit into Harvard life.

Though the new publication will fill a definite need, its success is not a thing assured. It has chosen a most unfortunate time to venture into a world where finance are, in the last analysis, the indicator of success and failure. If has chosen a time when the tendency is for students to be more and more preoccupied by their studies, and ever less interested in extra-curricular activities. Under intelligent and responsible direction which fully realizes the magnitude of the task which it is undertaking, there is, however, a good chance that the magazine will make itself a lasting part of the Harvard scene. The healthiest growths are those which thrive under adverse conditions, and if the Harvard Critic make a permanent place for itself it will be a welcome and valuable addition to the flocks on Harvard's Parnassus, and a credit to those who are sponsoring it.