To Fill the Gup

The following editorial is reprinted from the Smith College Associated News. It contains valuable material for Harvard undergraduates, who will select their delegates to the Chicago students conference this Thursday.

The American student stands in a peculiarly aloof position. He has little contact with his fellow students on American campuses and he has little contact with students in Europe. His horizons are drawn on narrow lines, both at home and abroad. With others, the intellectual exchange is slight and cooperative action negligible.

We have a chance now to rectify this difficient position. The gap in student life in this country has the opportunity to be filled by the birth of a national student union, which would strive for the very qualitics and activities lacking today.

Colleges from the forty-eight states are being asked send delegates to a conference in Chicago where plans will be made for such an organization. The delegates will consider the type of body which they think students want and will then hand over the mandate to a constitutional committee.

When a national student union is established, it will fill the double role of a cohesive force in the American university community and the American link in the international unio nof students.

It should be understood that participation at Chicago does not commit any group to join any national student union which subsequently might be established. Our role now is only aid in the formation of the organiziation. In the light, however of the democratic basis of the conference and the mandate which will be laid down for the constitutional committee--a mandate which will be wrought by all delleagtes--this college will probably find it to its advantage to join.

The validity and necessity of goals, as foreseen at present, cannot be denied. As students remain now, they are a nonetity as a group in this country; they can become an important entity by virtue of a national organization. The country needs the force and aid of students, and students themselvels need other students.

The delegates will have an important function. In making the final choices from the list of nominations suggested in the houses, the qualifications should be carefully kept in mind. We want to send the best and most informed and experienced students possible.