The Christmas Issue of the Advocate, the first published by the new board, contains little of the material from which important literature is made. Nevertheless, this copy pleases where so many of its predecessors have failed, for its unpretentious manner and its frequently light touch will bring most readers more enjoyment than a plethora of attempts for significant subject matter. David Hessey's "Young People" is typical of much that is best in the issue. A straightforward account of a child's reaction to death, this story's modest omission of psychiatric analyses only adds force to a peculiarly penetrating and satisfactory sketch.

The lead story, Maurice Obregon's "Eclipse," is a less successful attempt to analyze the reaction of a group of academicians to the breakdown of the scientific hypotheses. Unfortunately weak in literary exposition, the story holds the reader by creating curiosity over a conclusion which will satisfy neither the mature philosopher nor the artist. Rodes Arnold's "Staring" displays far maturer descriptive technique, but much of its merit is destroyed as irrelevant threads reduce the plot to a meaninglessly banal hodgepodge.

This issue's poetry ranks for above that of the Advocate's recent years. Without a pretense of profundity George Montgomery's series, "Ice in June," skillfully weds the short line stanza to an almost epigrammatic subject matter. Like William Ober's "Murder ex Cathedra," these light and occasionally brilliant pieces are not of the sort which receive permanent resting place in the Widener Treasure Room, but as "occasional" lyrics skillfully integrating form and subject, they make delightful reading. Ormonde de Kay has contributed "Hopscotch," a pleasantly wistful bit of reminiscence, not inappropriately hidden on the last page. Contrasting sharply, Day Lee's "And Then the Hunter's Horn" demonstrates the unfortunate impact of the works of Robert Frost on the immature poet, unacquainted with the matter and form which make the best of Frost ring true.

Venturing into criticism the Advocate has printed an overly long article by Curtis Thomas on the novels of an obscure contemporary, Paul Hervey Fox. Attempting the almost impossible tour de force of describing an unknown in order to evaluate him, Thomas never even succeeds in bringing his Pygmalion to life, and Fox remains what he was, a little known novelist.

Starting with Rolland Thompson's new cover, the most appropriate the Advocate has featured within undergraduate memory, the tone of the issue is one of lightness in a time of trouble. In the past this column has criticized the Advocate for a lack of material on the topic of immediacy, war. But now that the struggle has become so integral a part of our psychology attempts to mold it to the literary form seem strained, and what formerly might have been mere frivolity is at present a refreshing excursion.