With the announcement that unless more boarders are obtained Memorial would be closed, it seemed for a while as if a panic had seized upon those who up to this time have thrown their fortunes with the hall. One thought of the old proverb, that rats forsake a sinking vessel, when on all sides one heard the men express their determination to leave. To such we would give the advice of Horace Greely to the giddy youth about to marry, "Don't." If the hall is once closed, when once we have been compelled to submit to the extortions of Cambridge boarding-house keepers, to undergo the miseries of poor cooking and worse service, then we shall probably appreciate the beauties and advantages of the university commons.

Memorial Hall is one of the most attractive features of the college, and to many one of the pleasantest factors of their student life. It must be maintained at all efforts, and it is really difficult to understand why its successful support should be for an instant even doubted of. Numberless schemes for improving the condition of the Dining Association have been offered. Some are worthless, others seemingly good, but the majority possess the salient objection of being impracticable. The faults usually found with the hall are generally without foundation. The price, considering all things, is moderate; the fare is very good, far superior to that offered at any house in Cambridge that furnishes four-dollar board at seven dollars a week.

This is not the first time that the existence of Memorial has hung by a thread which the slightest strain would easily break. It is now time, once for all, to determine the needs of its future and permanent welfare. We must look the facts squarely in the face and act according to the conclusions legitimately obtained from them. We have tried to conduct the hall as a student affair, and have failed; it is unpleasant to say "failed," but it is for all that the truth. It is not our purpose, nor is it necessary, to show why we have not been successful in our endeavors; we are concerned only with the remedy.

After mature deliberation, and after conference with those who have had experience in similar matters, we have come to the conclusion that there is one, and only one, way in which to make the commons a success. The college authorities must relieve the students from all responsibility or care in the matter, and conduct the hall as they do dormitories. They must make a college affair of it, if we may use an expression that will be readily understood. It would be useless for us to explain how easy it would be for the authorities to do this; how an especial officer should be appointed, with a fair salary, to attend exclusively to the interests of the commons; or how well they could avoid the errors into which we have fallen. Understand us, that we find no fault with those who have hitherto managed the hall, but we feel that unavoidable mistakes have happened, not been made, from the very nature of the circumstances, and we think it has been shown conclusively that students cannot manage a dining association of the size and importance of Memorial Hall. There is only one resource left; let the authorities see that it is taken advantage of.