The dramatic word is in a peculiarly fortunate position this year at Harvard. For besides the traditional seats of the laughing Muse at the Pudding and Pi Eta Clubs, the number of organizations bent on producing the Play Wonderful have hit a new high.

Chiefly, there is the Dramatic Club. Its new schedule of four plays a year instead of two should be a pat on the back to any undergraduate playwright with a burning manuscript in his pocket. And the Student Union Dramatic Club, too, should pop up again this spring with as good a production as their "The Cradle Will Rock" and "Waiting For Lefty" of the last two years.

But the biggest hope for the playwright is Harvard's new zest for radio. The Workshop expects to produce a few plays a month. And they will have a guaranteed outlet to the college via the Crimson Network. No author will have a better chance to have his opus praised or picked to bits than at the next morning's breakfast table. With plenty of "free air" available, Harvard should be swarming with Maxwell Andersons if the law of supply and demand holds good.

But so far creative genius at Harvard has stayed pretty much in hiding.

The Dramatic Club has received three or four scripts but nothing worth the $1,000 which Vinton Freedley's experiment of last year cost. The Radio Workshop has little to count on outside its veteran script men. Perhaps, new talent will begin to crop up now that the Network has actually begun to put plays on the air. But a far greater stimulus would seem to be needed.

The mere fact that there is a radio station and a stage is not enough incentive to produce an army of writers at Harvard. Training must come first.

Writing for radio and the stage are specialized trades. They are media different from all others. They have their own particular tricks and conventions that must be mastered. And training can only come through an official course in composition. That such a course be given credit towards a degree is essential: the Extra-Curricular Reading in American Civilization proved that.

With five courses at Harvard devoted to composition, certainly one could be given over completely to the stage and the radio. No radical change in the English Department is necessary. In fact, English A-2, with its emphasis on the short story, has already established the precedent. It would merely mean that A-3 or A-4, for example, would change its name asd take on a specific purpose.

Of course, even if University Hall approves the course, there is still the question of who is to give it. The English Department may claim that none of its men knows enough about stage and radio. True enough, perhaps. But what is needed is not so much a professional but a man with interest and drive enough to put the course over. In its own fold, Harvard has men like Mr. Siepmann who can give valuable professional advice. And then there is always the bright hope that an expert right from the field of radio and drama might be induced to spend a day or two a week at Harvard.

Perhaps all these hopes are a little too bright and a little too hopeful: their fulfillment is necessary if Harvard is to stay abreast of the times.