It was eighteen hundred and eighty-seven when the last issue of the CRIMSON was published; it is now eighteen hundred and eighty-eight. Our Christmas vacation is over and we come back once more to Cambridge and prepare to train for the mid-years. This is a time for making good resolutions, and the college could not do better than resolve to inscribe a complete set of athletic victories on the blank scroll of the new year, 1888. Our record for the past two years has been anything but enviable, and it is for the men who are now here to see to it that our college resumes the lofty position she held in '85, and once more reigns supreme in athletics. To accomplish this, the most intense energy is necessary; every exertion must be put forth if we intend to carry out our New Year resolutions. And with the coming of the New Year we realize that in a few months, eighty-eight, a class which has ever been an honor to Harvard College, goes out and leaves behind a gap which will be hard to fill. We shall miss her sorely. She has made a noble record and we shall have to strain every nerve to fill the holes left in our ranks.

New men will be needed in the eleven, the nine, the crew, and the Mott Haven team. The places where we have thought ourselves the strongest will be vacant and the call will be for new material. It is the classes left in college who must respond to this appeal. It is needless to say that '89 and '90 realize the responsibility thrown upon them, but the freshmen should be reminded that they too must put their shoulders to the wheel. Every man who has the welfare of the college at heart should go to the gymnasium and see if he is not good for something. Let him not be discouraged; nothing is accomplished without practice. If every man did his duty, and trained faithfully for that branch of athletics for which he is fitted, we should have no reason to fear defeat from any opponent.

And now at the beginning of this new year, we once more remind the freshmen class that it is the custom of the CRIMSON to elect two editors from that class during the early part of this year. We therefore urge most strongly that candidates from now on do steady earnest work and prove their fitness to fill the places now open.