To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

In your paper has recently appeared a review of the current number of the Harvard Advocate by Mr. Frederick L. Allen, '12, a letter from Mr. J. Auslander, '17, discussing that review, and a rejoinder from Mr. Allen. Will you allow me space to come into the discussion?

Damning with faint praise all college magazines and the Advocate in particular, Mr. Allen's letter reiterates his review; and asks for articles about football or essays that shall relate the college class-room and literature. He indicates that some people are too prone to think of compositions about Shelley as being necessarily superior to writings about football. That many of us incline to this belief is thoroughly true. We bolster our supposition with the perspective of memory which asserts that pages about Shelley are indeed more likely to be well lettered and less subject to mortality than quartos about athletics. Mr. Allen flings the courteous gauntlet that may not remain unnoticed.

His dogma would summon to journalism those who follow the brooding stars of art. He calls for language of downright statement from those whose writings aspire to suggest. He would indenture to erudition or popular data those who are apprenticed to imagination.

Not since that earliest cave dweller, feeling the pangs of creation within him, scratched upon the bones of one animal the sensuous visage of another, have the children of dream gone unchallenged by many. Is it that after the lucid history of centuries the reason, the merit, the meaning, the value of art is still doubtful? Remembering Greece, and Athens that should make Rome vital, and Byzantium that should trumpet Italy out of stupid darkness, and the Latin Renaissance that should succour Europe even to the present moment, can any pen deny those who would look upon football as a momentary spectacle and upon beauty as an eternal grace?

Should we not pity those whose uninitiate hands can mould less than the fragment of their visions; encourage and sustain, that their hands shall more firmly hold the chisel which may carve from witless stone an inspiration for our posterity?

If one or many students in this or any school would turn from textbooks to holier writ; if a single neophyte among those clustered about the Advocate or any college magazine would lift his eyes to the acropolis of esoteric thought; let no restraint be placed upon him.

Mr. Allen's own article has provoked so much thinking, that it argues the certain value of what he desires for college publications. Will he not also concede that the wings of Pegasus should have their trial-flights? MALCOLM YAUGHAN '21