FIRST NIGHT

It is a thrilling event for the cast when the curtain finally rises and the play, which is the product of so much work, anxiety, and back-stage drudgery, goes on. And tonight is an auspicious one for the Harvard Debating Council when the curtain rises on inter-House debating. This too, is the product of months, even years of labor and promotion, particularly on the part of Lawrence Ebb, president of the council. It is the high-water mark of Harvard debate in the year that the latter has come into its own, with University sponsorship and an ambitious program of radio, intercollegiate, and intramural debate.

And it is auspicious not only for the Debating Council, but also for the House Plan and Harvard at large. Signal is the addition it makes to the ledger of House activities. Of prime importance is the web it weaves to bind closer faculty and students by its plan of tutor participation. It will undoubtedly play an important part in the further development of the warm community spirit which is the ultimate goal of the House Plan.

Such a radical enlargement of the debating fold is ambitious and if it is to succeed, it will require not only the active interest of those 192 men who have already expressed a desire to talk, but also spectator-sympathy from all other students. When the curtain has risen, the play will "take" only if the audience acts, feels, and participates with the cast.