"I have troubles enough without letting the public gape at the results of my lectures." So complained a Yale English professor the other day as some of his students set out to maul Harvard in a three-hour skirmish on the field of English literature.

There was considerable attention given the meet in the press and it was almost entirely in a mood of skeptical humor. But, according to the report a great amount of undergraduate enthusiasm attended the unique battle, from Beowulf to Thomas Hardy in extent. And insofar as this interest holds, Mrs. Putnam's idea is psychologically sound. It only awaits the prestige which age will bring to it.

Strangely enough, the professors demurred more than anyone else. The demeanor of the Yale pedagogue quoted is characteristic. From their viewpoint, such a use of divine learning borders on sacrilege.

Mrs. Putnam apparently did not see this aspect of the college situation at all: she was interested in directly stimulating attention to studies. But she has done better than she know. She has strengthened a professional bugabear until it is threatening to bite the professors. Come to think of it, a public review of what is being taught in the classrooms seem an eminently healthful development.

This sally of the brainy into the territory previously sacred to the brawny is not the last of its kind. It is a growing idea that squares nicely with the current criticisms of cloistered education. And, as it is turning out, it may be more valuable as a quiz on comparative teaching quality than as a student activity.