The building of the new dormitory at the corner of Linden and Mt. Auburn streets, the work of which is being so energetically pushed, brings to mind this fall with greater force how inadequate are our accommodations for the ever increasing number of students. Year by year more and more men have been crowded from the dormitories till now nearly two-thirds of the college rooms are outside. Moreover the prices of board in Cambridge, high already but always growing higher, make it a serious question for new comers and in some instances have deterred men from coming to Harvard. Thus at the very beginning a serious stumbling block is presented to new comers. We need more dormitories, we need large new dormitories capable of holding a hundred or a hundred and fifty men. Nor is that all: we need cheap dormitories. The new buildings which have been erected the last few years have answered a purpose, but they have been too high priced to reach the kind of men who are growing more year by year, to represent the majority of Harvard under-graduates - the men who are either only well to do or have to work their way through college. We are no longer, as we were at one time accused of being, a college for the rich. We are reaching the other class of men, earnest and determined, but in moderate circumstances, and at the outset we present them with the great difficulty of finding rooms and finding those high priced.

As year by year we receive always welcome bequests for various purposes, it seems strange that it has yet occurred to no benefactor to supply this crying want. No man can give today a more needed present to the university than a large dormitory, well planned and comfortable, but cheap, capable of holding a large number of men at a small room rent.

This difficulty of accommodating men, this question of cheap room rent is becoming serious. Now is the chance for some benefactor, wishing to do practical service to the college and materially to assist those who are coming year after year, to supply this serious want.