The Harvard War Memorial, a new chemistry laboratory, and new University dormitories, will all be considered at the Associated Harvard Clubs Convention in Kansas City on May 25 and 26. The recommendations of the many committees and the decision of the convention on these matters, while having no actual executive power will go far, toward influencing those in authority at the University in their actions on these matters.

The war memorial committee, before deciding upon its recommendation, had its chairman, Charles Moore '78, of Washington, D. C., send a circular letter to all members of the Associated Harvard Clubs, asking the following three questions:

1. Should the location of the War Memorial await a general plan for the physical growth of Harvard University and be made a feature of that plan?

2. What, in your opinion, should be the character of a memorial: a monument, a chapel, or some other form?

3. Do you favor any particular location?

Graduates Favor Chapel as Memorial

The committee reports that "in the answers to these questions, there was an overwhelming opinion that the location of the memorial should await a general plan of University expansion, and a large majority of the members declared themselves in favor of a new chapel, as the highest expression of the spirit which actuated the men in the World War." Among the members of this committee who signed its report are: President Eliot. General Leonard Wood, M. D., '84, Bishop C. H. Brent, H. '13, J. S. Sargent, H. '16, R. W. Child '03, F. D. Roosevelt '04, Theodore Roosevelt '09, and Hanford MacNider '11.

Immediate measures for raising funds for a new chemical laboratory at the University are imperative, according to the report of a committee of graduates appointed by L. P. Marvin '98, president of the Associated Harvard Clubs, to consider the needs of the department of chemistry.

Condition of Boylston Unbelievable

Stating emphatically that the present physical dilapidation of Boylston Hall, the main chemical laboratory, is "almost beyond belief", and that thirty-three years ago it was already considered antiquated, the committee asserts that even if this building is extensively repaired, "the only result achieved will be a third-class laboratory that has accommodations for about one-half the number of students that will be forced to work in it. It would be utterly impossible to provide for normal growth by such means."

"Every graduate who has a son going to the University should visit Boylston Hall and see where he will have to work," reports the committee. "What can be said for the professors who have to do the teaching? Simply that devotion to the University and their belief in its future has kept them at their posts. Every one of them could step out into better positions. In theoretical chemistry the Harvard staff have no superiors in America today. It is manifestly difficult, however, to hold a faculty together when such sacrifices are demanded; and new professors from the outside are not attracted to Harvard, which is not a healthy condition for any faculty to be in. How long then must chemistry at the University be confined to the narrow, unsuitable, inadequate bounds that restrict and distort its growth?"

Vitally Concerns all University Men

"The present inadequate provision for the study of chemistry is not a matter that concerns only the Division of Chemistry when as many as 35 to 45 per cent of the undergraduates are involved. The necessity of the occasion demands that every University man and every friend of the University should at once become interested in this most vital need. When the Associated Harvard Clubs and the alumni really understand this deplorable and impossible condition of the Division of Chemistry, this committee believes that they will not rest until the situation is cured."

The committee of Harvard graduates which made the report is headed by Edward Mallinckrodt Jr. '00, of Saint Louis, Mo. The other members are Dr. W. S. Thayer '85, of Baltimore, Md., Professor T. W. Richards '86, of Cambridge, W. C. Forbes '92, of Westwood; M. H. Ittner, Ph.D. '96, of Jersey City, N. J.; Eugene DuPont '97, of Greenville, Del.; Eliot Wadsworth '98, of Washington, D. C.; G. C. Kimball '00, of Pittsburgh, Pa.; I. P. Hazard '95, of Syracuse, N. Y.; and Elihu Thompson, S. D. (Hon.) '09, of Swampscott.

Submit Many Other Reports