THE PRESS

Now Mr. Lowell himself has set at naught all rumors of his impending retirement. He has no intent to resign from the presidency of Harvard that the conclusion of the current academic year," the official statement declares; and we trust that this authentic word will give surcease at last from a condition which has long been embarrassing for all persons concerned. During the past two years a stream of rumors regarding President Lowell's intentions has flowed almost as constantly as its various currents have been confused and conflicting. How distasteful this activity has seemed to the president himself is now clearly indicated by the fact that it has moved him to depart from his long-standing custom of silence regarding such matters, and to authorize the issue of an official denial. His attitude, we trust, will command the respect to which it is entitled.

Incidentally, the statement now issued should expose, once and for all, the fallacy of one assumption which in recent time has been widespread. The idea has been repeatedly offered that as construction of the new Harvard houses attained physical completion, President Lowell would choose that occasion for a decision to retire. The truth is, of course, that completion of the houses themselves marks only the beginning of the evolution of the house-plan, and that no one knows this fact better than does Mr. Lowell, who first conceived the university's new way of development. The path of educational advance under the new conditions is long. It cannot be traversed in one year or in two years. On the contrary, there is an almost endless course of adjustment and evolution to be pursued, and Mr. Lowell, as a pioneer, has a strong and purposeful hand at the plow. --Boston Transcript.