In these days of financial recession it is unusual to hear of anyone passing up government money, yet for give years for five years the University with true Republican disdain has held aloof from generous federal offers. Although the National Youth Administration has repeatedly expressed a willingness to contribute a hundred and thirty-five dollars to each of the two hundred and forty college students whom Harvard's officials declared to be both in good standing and in need of the funds in order to remain in college, a wary University Hall has refused to accept the grant.

With the very existence of the Temporary Student Employment Plan being threatened, this refusal appears as a glaring anachronism.

Official Harvard it seems is afraid of being compromised by a government subsidy. It feels that such directs aid might be the entering wedge which would permit a future national administration to interfere with its highly prized academic independence. However, the validity of the argument crumbles when the facts of the case are examined. Ninety-eight per cent of all schools eligible for the grant have accepted it and this group contains-some three-hundred private non-sectarian colleges, including Yale, Columbia, and Radcliffe--none of whom have yet shown any grave sign of government corruption.

The current Harvard financial set-up makes doubly imperative the acceptance of the N.Y.A. offer, for the rise in dining hall wages--in spite of the adjusted rates--will cut down the profit margin upon which the Temporary Student Employment Plan depends for its existence. Since the N.Y.A. funds are to serve the same purpose as the T.S.E. money, i.e., work-scholarships, there is no reason why the government grant cannot be used to make up part of the salaries now paid by T.S.E. "Pride goeth before the fall" and a haughty University can best serve its own ends by accepting a liberal government's aid.