On November first Harvard is inaugurating a pension plan for its non-teaching employees, which will apply to all those men and women who have had three or more years of service with the University.

They will contribute three to four percent of their annual salaries and the University will contribute equal amounts to this sum, thus making a handsome annuity policy. In addition, those employees who have been with the University for more than nine months, will receive life insurance premiums without cost to themselves.

This admirable idea should have been put into effect several years ago, as it has long been a standing disgrace that Harvard University should have been so far behind the times on the issue of Social Security. There is little excuse for an institution as well endowed as Harvard is, comparatively speaking, to have neglected to make suitable provision for its aged and faithful employees. If the University is to continue to call itself a progressive institutions, and pride itself upon holding a place of leadership in the United States, it ought to think of such things sooner, or at least endeavor to keep abreast of the times, instead of bringing up the rear.

The Government, under the all embracing tutelage of the New Deal, has persuaded or coerced hard boiled business men of large industrial companies to adopt and conform to the Social Security Act, but Harvard should not put itself in the position where people may say, that the University put through its pension plan under pressure of public opinion.

However the present plan now adopted, is a very generous one, and it is better that it should come now than at some later time, when some newly-passed law might have forced it down the University throat.