The accession of Coach Arnold Horween dissolves in a particularly happy manner the perplexities that have surrounded Harvard football since the close of the 1925 season. The entire fitness of the appointment leaves nothing but wonder at its tardiness as well as satisfaction at the final unriddling of a problem--which has given such prolonged concern to the Athletic Committee.

Harvard sought a coach who was in accord with the best traditions of University football and who was no less in touch with the most recent development of the sport elsewhere. It wanted also an able strategist, a teacher of a sound game, but most of all it wanted a leader of the same high type that has invariably been in command of football at Harvard. All these desiderata the new appointment satisfies to a nicety.

With football uncertainties thus dissipated and the ground cleared for spring preparations, the feverish speculation of the past winter ought to give way to a more normal outlook. The brief statement made yesterday by the new coach is indicative of his plans and will receive the approbation of the vast majority of Harvard football followers. He declares that he believes the Haughton plan to be basically sound and that he purposes no wholesale scrapping of accepted fundamentals.

His application of those fundamentals will be watched with interest by everyone. But under the difficulties with which he is necessarily confronted, immediate and undiluted success in winning games is not to be made the measure of the confidence and support which the University will accord him. That support is already complete. It will not be diminished or increased in proportion to the number of touchdowns his team scores in the Stadium next fall. Needless to say this does not alter the fact that ten thousand men of Harvard, or whatever the number has now become, are hoping that great numbers of them will be scored and that the Harvard goal line will again become as inviolate as it was in the days when Coach Horween was player and Captain two college generations ago.