Not long ago a member of the Law School who was asked by some strangers where Austin Hall was situated, was forced to confess, after long and vigorous thought, that he did not know. This is an aggravated case of an ignorance concerning Harvard's equipment which is prevalent to a remarkable extent among the students. Many a man spends year after year here without learning the names, much less the internal arrangement and contents, of half the buildings which he passes time and time again. Especially is this the case with the various museums connected with the University. It is doubtful if half the men of the junior and senior classes resident here in Cambridge have ever taken the trouble to go through the Peabody and the University Museums and some of those who have done so have been invited by friends not in college. We students do not inform ourselves well enough concerning the things which lie right about us; we go to our lectures and recitations and are not curious enough about the buildings we enter to explore them at all; an immense class of undergraduates gather in the University Museum for a Geology or Botany lecture and never dreams that in the halls all about are magnificent collections of minerals and glass flowers and stuffed birds and animals. Whether the apathy is greater here than in other places we are not prepared to say; the thing is lamentable wherever it may be found.

If this ignorance affected only the men who possess it the evil would not be so great, but the matter does not stop there. In a man's intercourse with the outside world he must talk about his college life, and how can he talk intelligently if he does not know something of all the various phases of the life and of the equipment of the college? Every man in the University stands for the University and people will judge of the institution from the men who compose it. The man who is ignorant of any legitimate phase of the life cannot, then, be a typical man; the student who has never been to the chapel exercises or who never goes to our athletic games is in no way fit to discuss Harvard religious matters or Harvard athletic methods with the outside world. And this is unfortunate because this same outside world is often misled and misinformed on just these matters. Others cannot know and appreciate the greatness of the University till we students know and appreciate it ourselves. From these words we cannot expect a sudden exodus to the museums nor a crowding of the college chapel simply for the sake of information; if we have uttered a truth, the truth will take care of itself.