This review of the Advocate was written for the CRIMSON by Donald Born, lecturer in English.

The current issue of the Harvard Advocate fails to fulfill the promise of its motto, "Dulce eat Periculum." A preview can, however, parade several articles which make lively reading. William Harlan Hale, Yale 1931 and one of the founders of the famed "Harkness Hoot," finds several differences between Harvard and Yale: that both insist on the separation of education and politics, but that Harvard more often actually separates them; that though Yale looks older, Harvard is older; that Harvard families are the older families. These differences are obvious, Mr. Hale thinks, because they are superficial. Deep-down, he assures us, Harvard and Yale are the same. Fundamental are the campus credos, "that a fraternity may be childish, but a Senior Society or an Eating Club is sacred . . . that whoever interests himself in progressivism or radicalism probably hasn't bathed for weeks, that a Phi Beta Kappa winner is either a major trickster or a greasy grind, and no compromise about it; that a prof under forty-five is a fellow who couldn't make a business success in the boom era, while a prof over forty-five is a harmless oracle . . .", et cetera. But to these axioms if Mr. Hale will add that supremely ubiquitous one about ". . . it's the friendships you make," he will have described a constant just as true at Princeton of Terwillinger.

Schlesinger and Boyle

Two other writers assume Harvard indifference to be a positive and commendable force in Harvard life. With two articles closely integrated and at times at each other's throats, A. M. Schlesinger Jr. begins a discussion of "Harvard Today," centering upon the Clubs and the Houses, the Faculty and Courses. Mr. Schlesinger is obviously not indifferent to Harvard indifference. He believes the Houses, "by balancing delicately between Harvard indifference and communal comfort have organized social life without cramping the individual." He likes the idea of the cross-system even if there are others who don't. His argument is direct and sustained, though sometimes with prophecy: "the House plan has made the Clubman, old-style, archaic. Diehards who will not follow their more reasonable associates to Eliot and Dunster are responsible for a growing spirit of intolerance which is new to Harvard . . . Anti-pacifism, anti-radicalism, and anti-Semitism all were born in the Clubs . . . And today the best clubmen are virtually indistinguisable from the best non-clubmen." And that is a steinful of Mr. Schlesinger's bucket of home brew.

James Le B. Boyle II, 1936, in "Miseries and Vanities" winks and blinks and nods at several aspects of Harvard Society. He smiles at Mr. Schlesinger's rally for democracy, but too often does he bemuse when he means to be gay. He has a gift for phrase; and, when under control, he communicates his point, quote: "If only all students were 'great men', all would be well. But alas, many are not, and in them indifference is no true neutral, philosophical calm, no objective judgment, but rather a petty reserve which too often excludes its possessor from lively interests. The reaction to the Cross-system has resulted in what Dr. Johnson would have described as an infelicitous congress of inharmonious invidualities . . . It is still Utopian to imagine that any university will attempt to educate students by associations and intercourse with other minds and manners, as well as by lecture courses." Mr. Boyle believes in the Clubs, and there is pith in what he says. This, and more, there is to interest the undergraduates and to worry the alumni.

And in Conclusion

Edward H. Dewey (Dr. Peebles) a former Tutor himself, has exhumed a very amusing "Tutor Henry Flynt" from Harvard's past. The reviews are good, the fiction only fair, the poetry provacative but not good. Mother Advocate has done well to turn her head toward the questions which the Tercentenary brought to the fore, and the articles, both timely and highly interesting, will undoubtedly start discussions at both high table and Dudley Hall.