The last quality expected from the Chicago Tribune is subtlety. Therefore its dictum on Harvard and Yale--that "now they are nothing more than institutions of learning"--may be accepted not as a graceful and suave bow to two great universities but as an evidence of bovine condolence. Each having lost a football game Harvard and Yale are out of the calcium until the 1928 gridiron season. They may remain huddled in their eastern reaches while the Big Ten fights its giant's battle. Life will go on life is like that--but Harvard and Yale are through.

"Now they are nothing more than institutions of learning." Nothing more gloriously ironic has ever emanated from any editorial column. One wishes that one might believe the World's Greatest Newspaper to have its tongue in its cheek, to be heaping coals of fire on those colleges and universities who live and die by their virgin goals lines. Such an attitude would be possible with almost any other journal in these United States--excepting the Chicago Tribune. They are not given to sardonics, these western magogs. They are sorry maliciously and gloatingly sorry.

There can be no rebuttal. There is merely opportunity for agreement. Technically Harvard is nothing more that an institution of learning. It never bas been more, nor does it ever wish to be. And if the members and alumni of the University are content with this restricted aim, all commentaries, either complimentary or double edged, fade into a deeper twilight than the twilight of the gods.