In view of the fact that little is really known about the football strength of Bates, conjecture is in order. The following is taken from the Transcript:

"Football prospects at Bates are not at all bright this year and with the Harvard game before them Coach Greene and Captain Moore are far from optimistic. There are only six veterans on the team and these, with three or four of last year's second string men will have to do the bulk of the work. There are several new men who are fast and heady and who played good preparatory school football, but who are too light for the college game. A large number of small preparatory school football stars entered Bates this fall but most of them are very light. Among the most promising are A. Nevel, B. Nevel, Swift, Shattuck and Curtin, a new man who may get a backfield position.

"The veteran Harding will take care of center and will have Captain Moore on his left and Russell on his right. Manuel will keep his old position at left tackle and is sure to do well. The remaining line positions will have to be filled by recruits. The departure of A. R. Cobb leaves the right tackle position vacant and there seems to be no one good enough to fill it. Witham and Clifford, both '15 men and members of last year's second team, are candidates for the berth. Danahy and Thompson, conceded to have been the best pair of ends in the State are both gone and there is no one to replace them. A. Nevel and Swift, both freshmen, appear to be the strongest candidates. Boyd '16 is also working hard and may earn a place on the team. He is fast and strong and takes care of forward passes in good shape.

"The lack of good football material at Bates is even more marked in the backfield than it is in the line. Dyer, Eldridge and Kennedy are gone, leaving vacancies that have not been filled satisfactorily so far. There are candidates enough, but most of them are too light. Dewever, one of last year's second string men, is the only back-field man on the squad who weighs over 155 pounds.

"Talbot, Connor and Pidgeon will all be used at quarter, it seems, and all three are brainy workers. Talbot is a veteran and his experience gives him the preference, but both Connor and Pidgeon are too good not to receive an opportunity to work. Talbot was badly injured in the Harvard game last year and the coaches will make an effort to save him this year because he is a valuable baseball man. Connor, except for his extreme lightness, would probably have the call over both Pidgeon and Talbot. He is faster and handles the ball cleaner. He is also a good ground-gainer and may be used at halfback occasionally. So far Pidgeon's work has been very good. He played some football while at South Boston High and was a valuable member of the team. He is a junior, but this is the first year that he has been out since coming to Bates.

"Butler is the logical choice for fullback. He played that position some last year and is the best of the material that has showed up this season. Gustin '15 is his strongest rival and may get a place on the varsity. He punts well and throws passes better than anyone else on the squad. Dewever, Rankin, Studebaker, Connor, and Kerr are all candidates for halfback, but none of them are as good as the men whose places they are asked to fill. Rankin and Connor are too light but will have to fill in, at right halfback with Studebaker bearing the brunt of the battle.

"Coach Roger Greene, the old Pennsylvania lineman, has created a new brand of football at Bates. He had nothing but speed to work with and so he made speed an essential requisite for a position on the team which he has created. The line being too weak to hold off the opponents long enough for a punting game he has developed an exceedingly open and highly daring offence which depends chiefly on the forward pass. In the meantime he has not neglected to prepare and adequate defence. Coach Greene and Director Purinton do not expect to win against Harvard, but neither do they expect to be buried under an avalanche of touchdowns".

Progress in Business Research.

One of the most flourishing additions to the Business School is the department of Business Research. The Graduates' Magazine prints a review of its recent accomplishments.

"A great many Harvard graduates who are occupying positions of responsibility in business enterprise will be interested to know of the remarkable progress which has been made by the University's Bureau of Business Research. This Bureau was established by the Graduate School of Business Administration in 1911 to gather, to classify, and to describe facts about business. The Business School teaches business and is developing principles behind business practice. The Law School had decades of precedents in printed volumes. The Medical School had hospitals and laboratories. Real information about business, not gossip and proverbs, but facts--such as records of output and costs under varying conditions and methods--were locked up in the vaults of business men and divulged with reluctance. The main object of the Bureau is to get precise and reliable information about business for the Business School. An incidental but important work is to furnish information to business men and to institutions training for business. The Bureau is much facilitated in its work by the inherently strategic position of the University as a non-competing, trusted, permanent third party with scientific aims and methods. In this position the Bureau furnishes information of use to the business world without revealing the records of any individual business.

"So far the Bureau has devoted itself to research in the field of marketing and in that field chiefly to the commodity of shoes, beginning with its retailing. To overcome great variations in bookkeeping, a uniform system of accounting was devised for retailers. After this Harvard System of Accounts for Shoe Retailers had been sufficiently adopted by the trade and figures based upon it gathered, Bulletin Number 1 (Object and History of the Bureau with Some Preliminary Figures on the Retailing of Shoes) was issued in May, 1913, based on the records of 130 stores that were fully comparable. In this bulletin were given the highest and lowest operating figures found for ten items--gross profit, total operating expense, delivery expense, stock-turn etc. Normal figures for these items were given, and, still further, figures were set as standards generally attainable because already attained by an efficient group large enough to be significant. It is in the providing of standards that the Bureau performs its greatest service, excellent as may be the accounting system it has constructed. Any good accounting system will tell a business concern where it stands, but only through a central agency like the Bureau, adjusting comparing, and tabulating, can the concern be told where it ought to stand. A second edition of Bulletin No. 1 was required in October, 1913. Data at that time collected from 655 stores did not affect materially the figures and standards of the first edition based on 130 stores.

"The Bureau is under the direction members of the staff of the Business School. The field agents so far have been picked students of the Business School. In this connection the Bureau is performing another function, incidental but important, in providing training and stimulus for these selected students Following definite itineraries as economically and speedily as possible, with definite reports to make that can be measured and compared, encountering all sorts of men and methods, supplements admirably the training of the School. To be selected as a field agent is becoming a mark of distinction: to example, all the field agents this summer have either declined more lucrative positions or secured a postponement of entering them in order to work for the Bureau. Even if ultimately a permsnen nucleus of field agents in addition to the staff of the School becomes necessary1