ACCENTUATE THE POSITIVE

Harvard's somnambulant student body will be on its mettle today. The limits of Cambridge's endemic indifference should be defined by the results of the long-awaited plebiscite on the Student Council's new constitution, and with the definition may come a prescription to combat the ravages of that peculiar disease.

Six months of disinterested effort by various individuals and committees lie behind the document which comes up for undergraduate approval this afternoon--six months which saw bitter attacks and mutual suspicion give way to progressive cooperation of a sort unique in the history of student affairs.

Whether the constitution which this six months' effort has produced is the best possible or not is a debatable question. The important consideration is that it is a product of democratic methods and of deliberate investigation by a specially qualified committee which has had as its sole aim that of providing the College with the best Student Council obtainable under prevailing conditions.

There can be no denying that the work of the original accusatory group and the final combined Council committee has resulted in a much-improved constitution. In such respects as participation of House units, loosening of nomination procedures, and reduction of appointed members from nearly half the Council to a mere two or three, the new constitution is a significant step toward a more representative and more active College advisory group.

The new constitution by its very nature will call for the same dynamic approach as that which spurred its birth. A new order of Council members may derive from a new order of Council; and with them the traditional vicious circle may reverse, leading to more action by, and--most important--more interest in, the Council.

At the bottom of every ballot distributed today and tomorrow will be a simple choice, printed in bold-face type for easy reading: Yes or No. The temptation of ignorance runs always toward negation; Harvard College in the post-war can rout the dual enemies of immaturity and indifference this afternoon with a modest check in the square next to the word Yes.