Apres Nous...

Any resume of a year's events is predestined to be pretentious. And when this compendium is made at an institution with a three-hundred year history, the result turns out self-centered and smug as well. It is easy to see, then, why the prospect of reviewing the year has always held irresistible attraction for CRIMSON senior editors as they prepare to retire from the journalistic hurly-burly.

This year, however, the University has failed to produce those upheavals which lend themselves to the turgid word and the stuffy phrase. One could, perhaps, be pompous about the No Liquor at Football Games rule; we have been, as a matter of fact. But it is easier at this point to admit candidly that 1954-55 has been a year of inconsequentialities and review it with that in mind.

Nothing, of course, could be more inconsequential than the continual doings and undoings of the Conservative Club, last spring's version of the shaggy dog story. The group has since lost its straight man from the Class of '29, but, with a singular wit, it has persevered. Only one could menaces our pleasure in the club's antics: every down, it is said, wants to play Hamlet and the Conservatives are now evincing an interest in learning something about politics.

We find that the humor which has been rampant down by the riverside these days is not of so universal a style. The Dunster House Committee, it seemed to us, deserved every laurel for obtaining one of the world's foremost names in architecture to aid them with the remodeling of the Funster ping-pong room. We find to our surprise, however, that the House Committee does not wish to be credited with sly jesting and claims to have done nothing funny. This modesty is commendable and refreshing and we can laud the Committee for that, anyway.

On that shakily-constructed set often termed the National scene, one of Harvard's foremost sons was chosen for a comic role last spring. Sam Sears trucked down to Washington as an impartial counsel in the McCarthy hearings. Until the authorities questioned the casting and dropped his opinion, Cambridge was anticipating quite a performance. As it turned out, the Show went on and was high comedy; but for real farce, Sam was our choice in the part.

A couple of streets over, the publicists of the Hasty Pudding Theatricals looked over American womanhood and unanimously selected Debbie Reynolds, a young lady who has appeared in motion pictures, as their Woman of the Year. The International Outing Club also brought a visitor to the area and visited the CRIMSON building with her, but that was a horse of a different color.

That pretty much sums up the important news of the past year; many people would include with these incidents the alleged football win by the University of Massachusetts, but we are restricting ourselves here to fact.

Had not the deanery, the Lampoon, and the Student Council behaved sagely and with wisdom throughout the year, our list might be extended. Next year perhaps one of these bodies will revert to type or perhaps future editorial boards will see fit to air their own foibles. For the present, however, we choose rather to bow out with skeletons still shrouded and with thanks to our readership for its indulgences.