The length of the Christmas recess allowed by the University is a perennial source of dissatisfaction. Everyone admits that it is impossible for a man to do a year's work at his highest efficiency unless the strain is broken up by several periods of relaxation and refreshment. This is the wherefore of holidays. Moreover, at least once during the academic session, it is necessary that the student take himself away from Cambridge and wash from him completely the dust of every day. He needs to forget temporarily the grind of study and the whirl of his petty activities among family surroundings, in the luxury of plum pudding debauches, and playing the social lion in his home town.

The Christmas necess, except for men living within a few hundred miles of Cambridge, is the only holiday period of sufficient length to permit in any degree such a gathering of fresh energy. And it is not long enough, especially for western men. For students who live on the coast, to take the extreme case, ten days must be spent in transit; and this makes a journey home out of the question. Even for men who live in the Mississippi Valley the trip can only be the briefest. And the one or two extra days allowed by the Office is not enough to remedy the evil,--even if consistency may be admitted in assuming that western men can afford to miss a few hours instruction the omission of which would be fatal to eastern men.

Longer recesses are allowed at other eastern institutions. Yale and Dartmouth allow 18 days each, Princeton has 16 days, and Cornell and Williams each 15. The University would be well satisfied with two full weeks, from December 20 to January 2, inclusive; this would allow three Sunday's making 15 days in all. Only three more days of actual work would be omitted,--two hours for some courses, and one hour for others. And no one would murmur at somewhat increased assignments to make up the loss.

If this matter could receive early attention at the hands of the University, a way could doubtless be found to grant these desirable extra days, without intering with the total amount of academic work to be done during the year.