The plan recently suggested of having student waiters in Memorial Hall, seems to us an extremely poor one. If put into practice, it would offer to about sixty students the opportunity to earn some what less than twenty dollars a month toward their support through college. Looked at in this light alone, the scheme has some merit, though it is very doubtful whether there will be any response to President Lakin's communication sufficiently general to warrant serious consideration of the change by the board of directors.

Even assuming, however, that enough students could be found who were desirous of serving, there would yet be strong objection to employing them. The material difficulties in the shape of certain falling off in the quality of the service, which would affect all members of the association, and of probable conflict of hours, which would inconvenience the waiters themselves, need hardly be considered. Beyond all drawbacks of the kind which might be tolerated, would still be the properly strong repugnance on the part of students to being served after the fashion of Memorial by men whom they must regard and meet as equals outside of the Hall. The relations which exist between a student and a colored waiter are not to be tolerated between two students; and it is impossible entirely to disassociate the duties of the Memorial waiter from the social standing which is now their accompaniment.

It is a most unwise policy to encourage among college students the resort to methods of money earning which rank so low in the scale of honorable employment. The theory that all self supporting labor is honorable is here in danger of being too widely applied.

There are certain forms of menial service to which it is not well for a self respecting man to become habituated, even if such a one can. Among them the waiting in Memorial Hall may safely be classed.