Along with flowers and music over the water and the other ingredients of operettas and romance, the theory and practices of the Junior Dance passed through an extremely drab period this winter. That gloomiest two weeks in January marked likewise the high point of opposition; since then, appeal to the class as a tribunal has brought enough Ayes to quicken the rejuvenation and to maintain for at least this year the tradition of the Dance.

It was probably the perpetual conservatism of undergraduates that led them to approve the continuance of the Dance; it must have been infinite optimism that, turned back from Copley Square by the University's authorities, and rebuffed from Memorial by the students themselves, was a balm strong enough to help the class upon a third road. Since 1922 stained glass and pseudo-Gothic vaults have reverberated once each year to jazz; but Protean student opinion stops changing for a moment, and finally agrees that bare wall expanse deadens good cheer. Back Bay is forbidden--all the better does the Harvard luster of the affair show.

And so the Union will play host tonight to the Juniors and their guests. No crystalline ballroom splendor, no mirrored nightclub radiance greet there the visitor to Cambridge. Yet Harvard and its traditions are not of the tinsel type; and though the gray University bedecks itself now and then for merrymaking, it cannot forget its real hue. New England solidity, Harvard, the Union, the Dance, all seem to merge for the night; but the parts show through. They are all of the tradition.