MOTHER ADVOCATE

Now that all its regular readers and many casual browsers have had time to see the current Advocate, few can be unaware of the excellence of the journal, which rarely boasts anything better than the "Opening of a Long Poem." Excellence is by no means a rare quality in the magazine, but it is too often hidden in the mediocre stuff which has earned the publication its Lampoon reputation, a criticism which can be applied to other undergraduate publications. The monthly has too few readers, partially because it is often hastily judged by those who happen to see it only in its worst moments, partially because it is the traditional goat among the sheep on Harvard's Parnassus, and perhaps because it is not too anxious to be read by the hoi polloi.

Yet it is all too true that this is no satisfactory ground for criticizing the periodical or its editors. Even if, as malicious persons sometimes whisper, its primary purpose is to get its writers' names and works into print, the editors cannot be justly censured for having no higher ambition. The quality of much of what they print, however, indicates that they neither aspire to be read as is the Saturday Evening Post, nor do they love filler. Admittedly students indulge in literary activities only for their own pleasure, and if in the long month of January the demand which a strict code of literary merit makes upon the undergraduate editors is so great that it destroys their pleasure in their work, and their standing in the College at the same time, then they are right in refusing to hold to such a standard.

None the less, there is a place at Harvard for a monthly which will never drop to the levels to which the Advocate descends in its most evil moments, because it does not aspire to the heights which Mother Advocate sometimes reaches. There is a real need for a magazine which is not first literary, but first Harvard, which can publish controversial articles, such as are present rarely attempted, and which can, because it does not depend on poetry and fiction for all its material, maintain a consistently high standard for the poetry and fiction which it does print. For the Advocate editors to do this would be doubly difficult. They would have to ignore custom and habit, and build up a new reputation, perhaps losing much that is good in their old reputation. However, there is an excellent opportunity for a group of ambititious young men, who would take the whole University as their realm, who would be read by graduates and instructors, and be eager to accept contributions from graduates and instructors, to fill an empty niche. William Harlan Hale has shown the way, Bernard DeVoto has set imitable standards, and there are those who are only waiting to welcome the ambitious young men