The petition of the students that they be allowed to celebrate athletic victories with a bon-fire on Holmes Field has been granted. President Eliot and the committee of members from the faculty have assented to the plan proposed by the students as an experiment. There is no doubt that they are somewhat skeptical concerning the success of the experiment, but by their action in granting the petition they have expressed themselves as willing to be convinced. The burden of proof of course rests now wholly upon us students, and the great opportunity for showing conclusively that we can celebrate in the right way will come in case of a victory over Princeton on Thursday.

Let us face the situation like sensible Harvard men and show the President and his fellows that the confidence they are putting in our word is not misplaced. There is more depending on the result of our next celebration, whatever it be, than is clear at first sight, and it is our duty to be perfectly frank in discussing it. First and foremost the continuance of our intercollegiate contests is at stake, and this alone makes it a matter of the utmost consequence to every student in the University. It is the merest folly to say that the Faculty could not abolish our intercollegiate games, or that they would not take so extreme an action. We might as well put our minds at rest on this subject immediately. The Faculty could most certainly abolish all forms of intercollegiate contests at the beginning of next year, and, further more, it would unquestionably do so if there were a few more celebrations such as the last one. We owe it to ourselves as the present student body, we owe it to the hundreds of Harvard men who have been here before us, and we owe it to the thousands who are coming, to guard with the greatest care the athletic interests of the University, which have been given to us to continue and develop.

This is the most important consideration before us, as we have said. The other and lesser one is that unless the proposed plan of celebrating is a success, our celebrations in future will be greatly restricted; we shall have to give up having a bon-fire and we may have to give up demonstrations of any kind in the Yard. The result of this would be that the new and thoroughly praiseworthy spirit of enthusiasm would be quenched, and we should probably return to the wretched indifference from which we have now cut loose.

These are briefly the things we shall lose by senseless and unprofitable demonstration, and now let us see what is asked of us in our next celebration. Certainly there is nothing unreasonable or in any way unjust in asking students to give up the use of fire-arms and explosives of all kinds, and when we have named this we have practically spoken of every form of restriction that is put upon us. The committee of students, carefully chosen from those most interested in athletics, was unanimous in condemning, and condemning strongly, this method of celebrating athletic victories. It will take but little argument to convince everyone that this is right, for most of the students we know are already opposed to it. Fire-arms and explosives are at best a poor way of celebrating and a wretched nuisance to Cambridge citizens. Often they are far more than a nuisance. It might frequently happen that at the time of the celebration some persons living near the Yard might be seriously ill, and perhaps dependent upon quiet for their lives. The firing of giant crackers or guns near the house of such persons would be a piece of thoughtlessness that would be almost criminal. During the celebration the other night it is known that several people who were very sick were badly disturbed by the noise fo guns. The only other thing that is expected of us in addition to giving up explosives, is that we shall not keep up our celebration beyond reasonable hours. On this account the committee of students asks that all demonstrations shall stop at half-past ten o'clock, which certainly gives us all the time that we want.

As we announce in another column, the president of the Senior Class has appointed a committee of forty prominent students to take charge of the celebrations. It is the plain duty of the student body to support this committee thoroughly in whatever it determines upon. Now that the situation has been fully explained and is thoroughly understood, every Harvard man should feel himself personally responsible for the success of our next celebration, and should be prompt to suppress the first exhibition of the wrong sort. This is especially necessary in view of the fact that there is sure to be present at any celebration of students a large and unruly town element.