If we are to win the peace we must understand the issues of the war. This is the idea behind Harvard's Council on Post-War Problems which will get under way with an organizational meeting Thursday night.

The Council will attack its subject through round table seminar discussions on different phases of the post-war problem. The results of these discussions will be presented in the form of a symposium to the council as a whole in its bi-weekly meetings.

Four committees are planned at present. They will each take a general field to study throughout the year developing perhaps three symposiums from this work. The present divisions are: International Political Organization, World Trade, Domestic Problems, and the German Question.

In this way it is hoped more or less thorough investigation of the field will result, but at the same time general unity will be kept between the specialized committees.

Through the participation of professors and students in international relations the work of the council will be raised above the level of ordinary discussion groups. Yet presentation of the material in forum meetings will make the results available to all interested. Plans are also afoot to publish a magazine embracing the findings and opinions of the committees.

The council hopes to establish a permanent organization through which students can devote themselves to the specific study of the post-war world. A substantial grant from a New York philanthropist gives them a real opportunity to put the idea across. It will facilitate the eventual establishment of similar groups in other colleges, held together by some sort of national publication. These plans are embryonic at present, but success here will give them a great boost.

While the present group is pretty much of a pioneering venture it may well end up as a real contribution to college thought and study. As specified in the bequest of money, "college students' greatest job in the present emergency is to use their education to understand the world they live in." This is the first real opening for such a non-partisan study that has appeared.