Nero played the fiddle while Rome burned; Harvard plays football while civilization totters. Is it, after all, too Brisbanian an analogy? There were a thousand men at the football mass meeting last Thursday and yet no one expects that a fraction of that number will attend the discussion of the war tonight. Nevertheless, it should be a good meeting. Partisan animosities are now well under control and most people are aware of their own ignorance or lack of insight into the fundamentals of the conflict that finds half the civilized world in arms. Under such circumstances, there is everything to be gained and nothing to lose in free and fearless discussion.

And free discussion there will be. The cosmopolitans will be at the meeting, with their respective cases to advance; the pacifists and the militarists should have a set-to. And past masters of the White papers will be there. In fact, all those who carry outside of the classroom an interest in history, international relations, ethics, -- in short in civilization,--all will be there.

The meeting presents an unusual opportunity to find out who the live members of the College are. Efforts have been made in the past to find them out, and to inaugurate through forums and open meetings something in the nature of intellectual sociability. We learn that this meeting tonight is the first evidence of another attempt to establish intercourse between the thoughtful men of the University. The spirit that backs up the football team is a good thing. But can't some of it be enlisted in support and commendation of the initiative of the Speakers' Club and the co-operation of the Union? An "Oxford Union" at Harvard has been the propaganda of visionaries for years. If we are ever even to approach it, now, in "the year of the war," is the time to give the movement its initial impetus.