The current number of Harvard Library Notes does not overstep the bounds of scholarship's conservatism when it calls the William Allen White gift of Shakespearean Quartos "the capstone on Harvard's collection of English literature ... comparable with the greatest gifts the Library has received in the past." The eighty-eight thin volumes, which would hardly fill a single shelf of the ordinary stacks, have been examined by the college librarians since the announcement in June of the edition. Their findings give point to their assay of the gift. Of the forty-four separate editions of Shakespeare which were published before the First Folio of 1623, Harvard now possesses one-half. There were nine plays in the first "collected" edition, printed in 1619. Harvard, due to the generosity of Mrs. White and her children, has eight of these.

Among the unforgivable sins in the rigid social code of the University, overdevelopment of the acquisitive abilities is not the least. The touching elbows of scholars must be wellworn. Not so with the institutions of the University. Their acquisitiveness is free of aggressiveness, and when they grow rich it is in a way unlike any other prosperity that is. The University feels the obligations of new wealth. It is humbled, as at the sight of something greater than itself, and proud, as at an enduring confidence.