In December, 1879, just twenty-five years ago, appeared a number of the Harvard Advocate with which the writer had some relation. A comparison with the Christmas Advocate of 1904 suggests some interesting changes in the point of view of the college journalist. The old Advocate was distinctly a newspaper, and to a large degree, a Harvard newspaper; of the twelve pages of the issue, less than one was given to advertising, but it had two pages of editorials and three solid pages of brief correspondence, College news, "Lies of the Week," and so on. There were then no dailies, and hence the undergraduates expected the semi-monthly CRIMSON and the Advocate to enlighten them. The itemeditor, prototype of the CRIMSON representatives who make life so agreeable for the officers of the University, was a valued member of the board in those days; and excepting for a little verse--and a very pretty little verse it was too--there was in the number for December, 1879, not a story, or an article, or a poem which was not directly related to College life.

In the present Advocate, outside of a "slam" at a professor of the University who doesn't mind the boys snowballing, and G. W.'s clever sketch "Happy Thoughts in Cambridge," which suggests an agreeable range of reading on the part of Harvard students,--there is not a word which might not have been written in New York, or Kansas City, or even New Haven. The Advocate has risen to the position of a literary journal which delights, amuses and elevated the public taste. It even has a Christmas story, Mr. Hagedorn's "The Pastor of Wenkendorf," which is agreeable, climactic and might well appear in the Saturday Evening Post. The old Advocate had little satirical verses.--"I am going to the Annex, Sir, she said," and that sort of thing,--the new Advocate includes a little idyl, "The Maid and the Shepherd Boy," by Mr. Gebhardt. The old Advocate had a clever "Proctoure's Tale," quite in the vein of Chaucer,--the new Advocate has "The Little Show Girl," by Mr. Cooper, a sincere and truthful sketch of a boy from anywhere. Both Advocates have had their place in the world of letters; but twenty-five years hence will anybody read this year's Christmas Advocate to find out what the Harvard undergraduates were thinking about in the year of our Lord 1904?