TAKING TO DRINK

It has long been the custom for undergraduate organizations, publications, and teams to display posters on the bulletin boards of the Houses and University buildings advertising their competitions and their wares. In the past these posters have dealt with some sort of business, but last week there blossomed out a set of posters advertising a social function for Freshmen candidates: a rum punch. Despite the fact that rum punches are one of the choicest methods of spending a few hours, the public attempt to lure Freshmen to extra-curricular activities by such means is likely to be deceptive to the Freshman and certainly does not shed any glory on the College.

Punches and parties where drinks are served form an integral part of Harvard's social life. No one can object to such functions as long as they are kept private, as they always have been in the past, when they have taken place in the seclusion of individual rooms, and when invitations have been given personally from the hosts to their guests. Those who drink at these gatherings are among friends.

But for an organization to ask a group of unknown Freshmen to a rum punch implies that to make good with that organization Freshmen must come to the punch. And this is likely to lead men to the habit of drinking during their Freshman year, a thing that is not necessary either for any organization's success or for the success of Freshmen.

Nobody could be so foolish as to interfere with drinking at Harvard. Yet nobody has to drink in order to have a good time here. Drinking should keep its place, and stay on the private and personal basis where it has traditionally been.