A few mediocre charcoals and lithographs, together with an unusually fine etching compose the exhibit of Kathe Kollwitz's work now being shown in the Leverett House Common Room. The quality of the pieces in the collection is of secondary importance, however. What is far more pertinent is the fact that for the second time this year certain members of Leverett House have had enough practical initiative and aesthetic sensibility to remove the capital "A" from the word "art." An average painting hanging on the wall of a House Common Room is of much more value than a most highly prized Rembrandt which leads a worthless and dusty existence in the middle of a blustering and pretentious museum. A museum is a noble project but instead of hosing art, it has upon its walls well-framed pieces of colored canvas, used primarily for research and study. A work of art is not simply a work of art in and by itself. It is not something to be started at by the members at a Ladies' Saturday Afternoon Club who will whisper in ignorant admiration and then speed home to play bridge. Art is neither hide-bound nor rigid but a sincere and amazingly human way of providing for the necessary satisfaction of both artist and audience.

Plato once said that the excellence or beauty of every structure is relative to the use for which the artist has intended it. In other words, an object must have a use before it can be considered beautiful and the greater degree of utility it has, the more beautiful it is. But art is only useful when it can become assimilated into the daily life of a person, when it can be taken from its silver platter and caten without the aid of knife and fork. And the only way in which any work of art is able to fulfill its function in society (and it does have a function) is by being placed where people gather to sit naturally, smoke, and talk in a normal, not a hushed, tone of voice. By introducing it to more familiar and pleasant surroundings it is not meant, however, the people should lounge around and "absorb" art while drinking Chianti in a smoke-field room. That a happy medium between the Bohemian aesthete and the straight-laced scholar can be reached is being very successfully proven by Leverett House. Its persistent attempts to remove art from the closet atmosphere of a gallery and place it within the warm and friendly precincts of a comfortable room deserve loud acclamation.