THE May number of the Monthly contains an article entitled "Of the Decadence of the Harvard Spirit: A Conversation." The writer is keenly alive to certain radical evils which have crept into college manners within a few years. These intruders have made themselves so prominent as to excite serious apprehensions in the minds of those who, in the hurry of college life, look about them and note the changes which have taken place. To graduates especially who have been college bred to another spirit, the signs of the times have caused no little anxiety. Such a treatment as the Monthly gives the subject is timely and worthy of careful consideration.

That there has crept into our life here certain features which are distinctly not-Harvard, cannot be denied. There has come with the elective system a noticeable difference in the way of living and in the general influence of the University on the individual. Yet we hesitate to admit that there is any real decadence of the "Harvard spirit." It is not strange that the reaction from the old conservative way of thinking should at first go at little too far in the other direction. In later years this decade will probably mark an important epoch in the history of Harvard. We are in the midst of this change and can hardly appreciate its true bearing either to the past or to the

future. While there are certain tendencies which make us fearful at times, they are, we believe, superficial, hardly more than signs of a change which is certainly going on. And yet this change does not mean a "decadence." The "Harvard spirit" is too much of a reality, is too deeply a part of the University to be lost. It may be modified to suit more advanced ideas, but that is all. We believe with "Jack," if only from an instinctive feeling, that our present position will prove to be the "outcome of a glorious past, the natural prelude to a more glorious future."