For every cherished Harvard custom there is an almost equally cherished complaint. The perennial complaint concerning the Junior Dance again reaches our ears; and the fact that he who is not a member of the Union will be forced to become one at the cost of ten dollars before he can attend the Dance has lost none of its attractiveness as a subject for criticism. The dissatisfied claim that the Dance should be held somewhere else, the membership fee temporarily lowered, or the requirement of membership suspended.

It has been repeatedly pointed out that the Union is a club, and as a club it is perfectly right in assessing its members. It extends privileges for which reimbursement is only proper, and there is no occasion on which it may be reasonably demanded that it should open its doors to non-members. If non-members are at times admitted, it is a favor and not a right; and if the Union chooses to remain exclusive for the Junior Dance, that is entirely its prerogative. The only question is of the Committee's justification in selecting the building for a function supposedly a class affair, not one for Union members only.

Brattle Hall is both hopelessly small and hopelessly ugly. An armory would deprive the Dance of its atmosphere, would transfer it into a mere subscription party, nondescript and characterless. A Boston hotel would present unwise and perhaps disastrous extraneous temptations. We recall the class dinners of old. Finally, it is doubtful whether engaging any of these places would decrease expenses. The apparent price might be lower, but the general average would be higher. For the Union, the class pays no rental; and those who are already members escape for a comparatively small price. For any other suitable hall, the rental would be high, and none exempt from payment.

The Committee, it seems to us, has made the wisest solution of the difficulty. And one thing that should not be overlooked is that every year the feeling within each committee against the Union is at the outset probably as strong as that of the class which it represents. Yet the yearly inquiry has always resulted in the same decision. The Committee is not being coerced or bulldozed; it acts as it does because it has a problem to solve with the nature of which the class at large is not conversant.