The current number of the Graduates Magazine comes to us bristling with football which alone would suffice to make it timely, for the athletic confusion is just now at its height. The passage on football from the President's report appears, indeed, to have come out a bit ahead of time. The President's comments have been reprinted in the CRIMSON. They tell pretty much the old story, and popular feeling just now is clearly the other way; but the President addresses himself primarily, not to undergraduates, or to the public, but to the college authorities of the country; and with them his clear, vigorous arguments are likely to prove effective.

The President regrets that athletics have become so largely the business of college life. Mr. Reid frankly takes "the football business" as his subject. His argument in favor of an organized and salaried coaching system is thoroughly sound provided we admit his premise that football now ought to be a business. He explains what has been done, and outlines what remains to be done. If we are to succeed, we must give up all notion of a desultory scheme of amateur coaching. "We did not start out," he says, "with the expectation that after only two years of work (and it was hardly a year and a half) we should be able to compete in the market with our big rival house of 15 years' standing and development. The attitude throughout is one of hopefulness,--provided we recognize that the difficulties can be overcome only by a far-sighted and consistent business policy.

From football as it is, A. M. Beale '97 brings us to football as it might be. His scheme of reforms is a bit alarming; among other changes he proposes to abandon all idea of a required five or ten yard gain, substituting the rule that a touchdown must be made in ten downs. His plan aims to combine the merits of the English and American games; to most persons familiar with football as it is now played here many of his reforms are likely to seem a bit chimerical.

Of the special articles not on football the most generally interesting is that by H. W. Foote '97, on "The Primacy of Harvard." This points out the immediate need of increasing the number of Harvard men from the South and West. At present there is grave danger of Harvard's becoming one of several large "provincial" universities. If it is to retain the place it has hitherto held, a larger proportion of its material must be drawn from parts of the country other than New England. This article is admirably supplemented by an account of the Associated Harvard Clubs, the great Harvard organization of the West, by their president, R. G. Brown '84. Both writers point out the need and possibilities of work for Harvard in the West; both base their statements on the fact that Harvard's influence is in danger of becoming localized.

A sketch of Jeremiah Curtin, linguist and ethnologist, best known to the public as the translator of "Quo Vadis"; a brief article by Rev. E. E. Hale '39, consisting mainly of personal reminiscenses of Longfellow as a professor at Harvard; a discussion of the future of music at Harvard by E. B. Hill '94, and a review of two notable books by Harvard men. Professor Bliss Perry's "Walt Whitman" and the volume of Dean Shaler's posthumous poems entitled. "From Old Fields"--complete the list of special articles. As usual, about half the number is devoted to the various departments--news from the classes, student life, athletics, and the like. The member as a whole is of distinct and unusual importance, for it deals primarily with two subjects of immediate interest to Harvard men--the football question, and the possibility of Harvard's retaining the leadership among American universities.