The attitude of the students on the Memorial Hall question is not so easy to state as that of the Corporation, since the Corporation is a small and clearly united body, while the student body is large and of differing opinions. And yet we think that there are two beliefs which will be found at the base of nearly all student sentiment upon the question.

The first is that the social side of the life at Memorial should not be sacrificed. No one, we suppose, would be inclined to deny that the principle of making the number of men larger than the number of seats, when carried to the extent that it is at the general tables, does sacrifice this to a great degree. With such bad results close at hand, the students at the club tables naturally feel opposed to the extension of this system or to the introduction of any system which seems largely similar. They believe that the opportunity for companionship and leisurely intercourse with intimate friends is one of the greatest services Memorial renders. The opportunity is so highly prized that many students, even when dissatisfied with the food furnished, still prefer to remain in the hall in order not to be deprived of it. When students ask that this opportunity be preserved, they ask, not that a sentimentality shall be indulged, but that a powerful and beneficial influence in their lives shall not be checked.

The second belief is that the Corporation will do wrong if it leaves the students for whom Memorial has no place to be accommodated by private parties. Board equivalent to that in Memorial never could be obtained from private parties at the same price because, in the first place, the cost to each boarder in a small establishment must be greater than in a large establishment and, because, in the second place, an allowance must be made for profit. The two causes combined make the increase in price a very considerable item. Now to the student who must live on a comparatively small amount of money-and the number of such who come to Harvard is very large-the cost of board is the most important variable in expenses. The increased price of board would have one of two effects. Either such students must content themselves with poorer board and the inevitable reaction on health and intellectual power, or else they must give up the idea of Harvard and choose some other university.

Students feel that it is the duty of the Corporation not only to provide educational advantages but also to see to it that these are made available to the largest number of men possible. Of what good is it to bestow attention on developing the University if, for the lack of attention, the University is slipping away from a large class of those for whom it was intended? The duty of the Corporation, in the eyes of students, is not only to make the University excellent but to keep it accessible.