Nearly three centuries have passed since the first festival of Thanksgiving was celebrated in early New England days. Since that time the custom of setting apart a day of general thanksgiving in the harvest season has spread from the shores of New England throughout the land until today it has become a thoroughly established national festival. Harvard College, more perhaps than any other similar institution, is distinctly associated with Thanksgiving Day, first because the earliest observances are to be found in and about Boston, and secondly because the first proclamation making a day of thanksgiving a national concern was drawn up by Samuel Adams, a graduate of this College.

What then does Thanksgiving Day mean to us? As the name signifies, it is the season of giving thanks, a day of retrospection rather than of expectation, in which we may fairly acknowledge the benefits we receive as University men. Without this day of appreciation we are all too likely to pass over our special privileges,--the association with men of high standards, the claim to noble tradition, the opportunities for sound moral and mental development, and assume as no more than our deserts the favors which the University bestows. But these favors are so varied and the sources from which they arise so numerous, that we cannot always be blind to them, and it is well that we have this occasion to pause and fell a sense of appreciation and gratitude. Whatever we consider to be the source of our own individual wealth, whether it be spiritual or material riches, let us not fall to make acknowledgment where it is due.

Many households far and near will keep the feast of plenty, many others through want and poverty will not. We do not live in a state of communism sharing all things alike, nor will the hungry be filled miraculously. Thanks given merely in words are empty and will have no significance unless they actuate a spirit of altruism and deeds of charity.