Harvard is trying to steer a path through the present football storm that will bring it out with its prospects improved and its honor intact. To do this it is going to need the support of the alumni, since either apathy or misplaced enthusiasm on their part will wreck the chances for successful and honest football.

This means that the alumni, while helping out with the program to attract better students, should not make it into a plan for recruiting athletes nor let it die through lack of effort. The University can do its part by getting more representative groups than the Varsity Club or the Crimson Key to lead the student end of the program.

As far as scheduling is concerned, alumni will have to realize that Harvard is not a national football "power," and cannot be such as long as amateur standards are in their present condition. Rather than tag along reluctantly at the end of an old and dishonored trend, the University should start a new tradition--one that values honesty more than victory.

The important point is that athletics, as a part of the "whole man" education, must be an end in themselves and not be operated either as a business or as a sideshow. Slight deviations from this standard may seem harmless, but there is no difference in intention between them and the outright purchase of football players. Even "traditional rivalries" are more expendable than education, and should not become the criteria of a football policy. If a traditional rival prefers the rarified air of the Top Ten to strict compliance with the rules, then it is useless for Harvard to attempt to keep up with him.

But we do not feel that acceptance of the standard will force Harvard to give up the bulk of its rivals, nor that Crimson teams will become perpetual doormats. We feel that an honest admissions policy can give us an adequate proportion of victories. We believe that Harvard still commands enough respect to serve as the focus of a new league, if the Administration and the alumni work together to make the new policy effective. The CRIMSON, like everyone else, is tired of football commercialism, and we feel that Harvard can point the way out of it.