To the Editor of the Crimson:

These are stirring days. The Student Council is progressively revising the College, and the Crimson is rapidly revising the Student Council. But the former, in its headlong flight, has made, to my mind, one serious mistake which has not yet been caught up by the latter.

I refer of course to the new and improved method of selecting the Ivy Orator. It is my understanding that the Ivy Orator is the man chosen for his nimble wit who injects the spirit of jolly good fun into the otherwise rather funereal Commencement proceedings. In the past this office was filled by popular vote, but last year it was decided to except it from the general rule of Class Day offices, presumably to ensure better orations.

There was something to be said for the end; the means are ridiculous. As things are now, the candidate must seek the office, not the office the candidate. The aspiring Senior must present a trial oration to a Council deputation, in an effort to prove his facile humor. To this procedure I have two objections: first, that while one's Commencement Day may provide sufficient inspiration for the springs of mirth, a Student Councilman surely will not, and secondly, the men who will seek this office will be those who have gone through their College career grubbing for even the most withered of laurels with which to dignify themselves before the girls in Paris Junction. I can think of no man in my class who would go through this preposterous rigamarole, of whom I would not be ashamed when he delivered his speech in June. In the past the election of the Orator may have been influenced by considerations of general merit rather than of sparkling wit, but surely that is better than that the office be doomed forever to be filled by second-rate publicity seekers. Paul C. Cochran '36