(Ed. Note: The CRIMSON does not necessarily endorse or assume any responsibility for the opinions expressed in other publications.)

The widow of a Milwankee publisher has bequeathed a million dollars so that newspapermen, on their leaves of absense, can study at Harvard. She hopes that this will elevate the standards of journalism in the United States. We do, too, but we're afraid that the plan has its drawbacks. For one thing, newspapermen as a class don't get leaves of absence. They either get fired or they take sick and die. For another thing, she has picked the wrong the kind of people to go to Harvard reporters, editorial writers, special writers. Obviously the people who could use a spell at Harvard are the publishers of papers, not the employees. Go into any newspaper office and you'll find it teeming with Harvard men, most of whom need not another term at Cambridge, but a dollar and a half to get their shirts back from the laundry. These employees are, by and large, men of high standards. If the papers of the United States could be turned over, suddenly, to reporters, editorial writers, and special writers, the standards of journalism would skyrocket overnight. It is the publishers who have back a newspaper, not people like J. Otis Switt, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Westbrook Pegler. Why? Because publishers want to make a lot of money so that their widows can leave a million dollars to send somebody back to Harvard. Hearst went to Harvard, and he couldn't elevate a standard if it was rigged up with pulleys. --THE NEW YORKER

... But the recent Nieman Bequest, thought it places an additional problem at our door, can only be regarded as a great challenge to this particular academic community... We are asked to expend the money in such a way as to "promote and elevate the standards of journalism," using journalism in the widest sense of the term. The provisions of the will are very broad... After careful consideration and consultation with a number of journalists, The Corporation has decided that initially the income of the fund shall be used to support... "in-service fellowships" (which) will carry stipends sufficient to make it possible for the holders to obtain a leave of absense from their regular work without too great financial loss... The holder of such a fellowship would, of course, be invited to Cambridge only if he had a clear idea of the line of study he wished to pursue... The plan is frankly experimental... We are, however, embarking on this enterprise with high hopes, confirmed by the favorable opinion of many journalists, editors and publishers who have been consulted...   --Report of the President of Harvard   University to the Board of Overseers, 1936-37.