NEW DEAL FOR '42

Coming on the heels of a Crimson editorial printed last April, the appointment of Stanley Salmen as assistant to the Board of Advisers remodels Harvard's worst fitting garment into a streamlined gown of 1938 vintage and escapes once and for all the accusation that large university is a "leveler" which drags brilliant students down to the standards of the average.

The advisory system, long a chink in the college armor, was brought to popular attention last spring by Dean Leighton's memorandum, and it was finally recognized that the system as it then existed was a failure. The eighty-four professors, instructors, proctors, and janitors, who were given a two-day unrecompensed guardianship over the Yardlings could not be counted upon for the intelligent guidance needed by those unitiated to college life and the wals of Harvard.

Under the new system, inaugurated this year, the number of advisers was reduced to sixty and these are being reimbursed for their services and can be called upon to give constructive aid or relinquish their positions to those who can.

Although this step came as a direct result of the memorandum, it by no means solved the advisory problem: for the most efficient system, coordination of effort between the Dean's Office, P. B. H., the Hygiene Department, and Advisers was deemed to be essential. In view of Dean Leighton's burden and in line with undergraduate opinion, as expressed in the Crimson, an assistant to the Advisory Board was appointed.

As the first incumbent of the newly created office, Mr. Salmen will perform general secretarial duties, such as correlating and distributing the data prepared by the various College agencies. He will also aid Freshmen in extraordinary academic difficulties and assist advisers as much as possible.

When the ordeal of Midyears is over, he will be granted the power to place exceptionally brilliant Freshmen under a system of limited tutorial whereby they will make more rapid strides in their initial year than was formerly possible.

The perennial joke of "next May, for example" no longer applies to the Freshman Advisers, and graduates and upperclassmen look to these new men and their new chief to vindicate Dean Leighton's theories and repair this very loose cog in the machinery of the University.