VOLUME XXIII.

NUMBER 1.

News and Views

The Harvard Harvard University faces a Endowment large deficit, indeed a series Fund. of deficits. The salaries of the members of the teaching staff were materially increased a few months ago because the University officers relied on the Endowment Fund; but the Fund can not provide for that purpose until the amount originally asked for, $15,250,000, has been raised. The latest figures show that the Fund is about $3,000,000 short and also that nearly 6,500 men who were at one time or another students in Harvard

College have not contributed. A movement to raise the $3,000,000 and to bring these 6,500 men into "the goodly company" of subscribers to the Fund will begin early in November.

The BULLETIN prints in this issue an article on the Endowment Fund written by Edgar H. Wells, '97, vice-chairman of the Executive Committee of the Fund. Mr. Wells points out that only 59.4 per cent. of the members of Harvard College classes, had, up to Sept. 20, 1920, subscribed to the fund. The total number of 17,807 subscribers was made up of 12,446 past or present students in Harvard College, 4,018 former students in the professional schools, and 1,343 friends of the University other than alumni. A comparison with the figures of the corresponding fund at Princeton proves unfavorable to Harvard. There the percentage of alumni subscribers was 76.7, the number of sub

scribers other than alumni was 1,807, and four individual subscriptions of $250,000, and one of $350,000, quite surpassed the Harvard record in the matter of large single gifts. The Smith College Endowment Fund figures reveal subscriptions from 82 per cent. of the alumnae and gifts from more than 4,000 persons other than former students of that college.

All this means that, in spite of the thorough-going efforts to place the opportunity to help the University in the time of its need before the entire body of the sons and friends of Harvard, that body has not yet made the response that is fairly to be expected of it. But "the light still holds out to burn"-and the rest of the quotation need not be set down here.

We do not doubt that the efficient managers of the Harvard Endowment Fund will carry to a successful conclusion the operations which they are about to undertake, but they must have the whole-hearted support of the alumni, not only of those who have not yet contributed to the Endowment Fund but also of those who have already subscribed. The latter must not think they have already done their whole duty; it remains for them to bring their classmates and other associates into line.

courses attractive to teachers. The enrollment of 1,709 exceeded every previous normal year by a large margin (the enrollment in 1916, for example, being only 1,044), and lacked only 20 of equaling the extraordinary figure of 1919.

The analysis of the enrollment brings out several interesting facts. The number of Harvard students in attendance was 277, as compared with 599 last year and 190 in 1916. The percentage of deficient students within this group shows an increase from 23 per cent. in 1916 to 31 per cent. in 1920. Assuming that there are still many Harvard undergraduates whose work has been interrupted by the war and whose resort to the Summer School is due to temporary conditions, it would appear that on the whole there is no growing tendency on the part of Harvard students to utilize the Summer School for the purpose of shortening the period of preparation for their degrees. The students from other colleges numbered 199 in 1920 as compared with 96 in 1916 and 202 in 1919. Even allowing for the effect of war conditions there would in this case appear to be evidence of a new and permanent growth, doubtless due to the same causes that have led to the marked increase in the number of men admitted to Harvard College from other colleges.

But it is when we turn to the group of "teachers and school officers" that we find the most pronounced tendency. This group has increased from 424 in 1916, and 477 in 1919, to 709 in 1920. At the same time, it might be noted in passing, the percentage of men in this group has declined from 34 per cent. to 29 per cent. in 1920, doubtless reflecting conditions in the country at large.

There can be no doubt, then, that the growth of the Summer School is at present heading away from, rather than towards, the four-quarter system. It shows no tendency to become a prolongation of

the regular term, or to serve as a means of rendering the period of college study continuous for twelve months of the year. On the other hand, there is every reason to believe that the Summer School will serve more and more effectively to open the resources and opportunities of the University to those who because of professional occupation or attendance at another institution are not in Cambridge during the reg ular session. The importance of this service is very great, as regards both the community and the University.

Politics

or

Poetry.

Will the presidential year cause much stir in the world of the undergraduate? In the business world, so far as the uninitiated can discover, the political fracas attracts far less than its usual due of interest, either apprehensive or expectant. Business, perhaps, takes the outcome for granted and discounts its effects, or else foresees no business effects to be concerned about, whatever the outcome. The intellectuals seem to have lost heart, so far as the hope of salvation for the world through American politics was ever any part of their creed. Will the undergraduate be more optimistic? Will there be youthful enthusiasts here to shout the party slogans in the ardent belief that the fate of humanity hangs on the result of the election? Will there even be any to beat the political tom-tom in the College Yard out of a purely partisan concern in the affair? We shall watch the Crimson with interests for any sign that the campaign is to rival the football team as a space-filler.

With even greater interest shall we watch the college magazines for some indication of a new trend in undergraduate thought. Will questions of government and social policy, national or international, stir the college youngster to expression, however immature? The Atlantic Monthly has recently become the

forum for a battle of wits between the older generation and the younger. The youngsters' reply to the Grundian criticism of their elders amounts to this: "Leave us alone. Don't try to mend our manners. You have made a bad job of the world and we are going to tackle it in our own way. If we offend your taste in the process, you have yourselves to thank." Will there be preaching of revolution, then, and poetry of revolt, in the Advocate and in some successor to the Monthly? Or will undergraduate literature be just literature? The undergraduate of this year was in most instances too young to bear any part in the war. Has it touched him deeply? If business, if the College, jogs on as nearly as may be in the old way, will the undergraduate make an effort to lift himself out of the rut?

Another Harvard University opened its College doors last Monday for the acaYear. demic year 1920-21. Harvard Square, a dull place during the past few months, especially since the session of the Summer School ended, has come to life again, and the Yard and the dormitories look natural once more.

Harvard graduates will be interested to know what the attendance of students is to be this year, especially in the College itself. It is too early for accurate figures, but the indications are that all of the undergraduate classes will be larger than they were last year-almost certainly that there will be an increase in the number of freshmen. Although the days of great annual advances in the attendance at Harvard College have perhaps gone by, it may reasonably be expected that the figures of the years immediately preceding the war will be reached again.

More men are now going to college in the United States than ever before many The increase has probably been greatest in the state universities, but most

more.

of the privately-endowed institutions also have felt the upward swing of the tide. The reasons are not far to seek. The boys and young men who took part in the war learned from their experiences on land and on sea that a college education was worth while. Moreover, the number of American families which are able to bear the expense of sending a boy to college has increased enormously in the past few

years.

The Vote

for

Overseers.

Elsewhere in the BULLETIN is a table showing the sources of the postal ballots cast for Overseers of Harvard College in the election last spring. The figures indicate that only a small proportion of Harvard men take part in the postal ballot, in spite of the fact that it is the one which really counts, for it decides which of the candidates shall go before the graduates for election on Commencement Day.

Harvard men in other parts of the country have sometimes complained because Boston exercised a powerful influence in the election of Overseers. We submit that such criticism is not valid as long as the graduates cast in the postal ballot only a quarter, or even less, of the votes to which they are entitled. The New England States of Maine and New Hampshire returned to the alumni office last spring just about one-fourth of the ballots distributed among the graduates in those states; Vermont, Rhode Island, and Connecticut made an even worse showing. And when we go further, the proportion of ballots cast to the number of men qualified to vote grows smaller. In Mississippi, for example, the ratio was 1 to 16, a familiar arithmetical sequence here reversed. In Alabama only 3 of the 68 men who had the right to vote for Overseers actually exercised that privilege, and in Canada only 24 of 249. How shall interest in the postal ballot be stimulated?