The past eight months have been a challenge to Harvard. The sheer size of the undergraduate body as well as its unfamiliar composition have taxed the ingenuity of the Administration from President Conant to the baby deans. Books, instructors, and room space have been in short supply. The effort to maintain high educational standards while serving the largest number of students in Harvard history has put the College to the test. And it has not been found wanting.

The record is not entirely favorable. Tutorial has been left behind in the rush. The House System has not fulfilled its potentialities, and personal contact between student and instructor is at a minimum. Although these shortcomings should not be accepted complacently, in the final accounting, the academic year 1946-47 has been one in which Harvard has demonstrated its vitality. Its capacity has been strained, but the strain has only served to demonstrate a reserve of energy that is not called upon in ordinary years.

The student body, too, has been under scrutiny. The veteran majority has worked hard and played hard. On the surface it has been calm, but underneath there has been an unusually tense competition for scholastic honors. While there has been little of the goldfish-swallowing type of revelry, interest in almost every field of extracurricular activity has been high. Activities which lapsed during the war have been revived. And while Dean-elect Bender and others have frequently pointed out the egocentric nature of the present undergraduates, they have at least been individually conscious of the significance of events outside the college sphere.

Next fall most of the Freshmen will come directly from prep or high schools. Future classes will be more and more molded in the patter of the pre-war Harvard. This is a mixed blessing, for the veteran student has been a boon to Harvard. He has brought it maturity, seriousness of purpose, and greater diversity. As it begins to "return to normaley" the College should strive to retain for future classes those elements which have reduced the crowding and the chow lines of the past year to the vel of of petty grievances.