Wine production, if nothing else, was better than ever last year. In France and Spain, growing conditions were perfect, the grapes were larger, and the boys who mash the grapes had bigger feet. But the wine consumers have not risen to meet this new challenge, which, according, to U.N. statistics, involves a mere 636 million gallons of surplus wine. Ready for sale, this surplus wine would fill just slightly more than two-and-a-half billion bottles. This trifling amount of wine would be easy work for any but the present group of apathetic wine drinkers.

Now, education institutions are always eager to do what they can to alleviate world difficulties, but the help they give is usually indirect, in the manner of books and scholarly solutions and such. But there is nothing more direct than drinking wine, or using it, for that matter, and this is where the University, so to speak, enters the vat.

Vin rose, instead of ice tea, would do wonders with corn beef and cabbage, and House meals might be the high points of the day. If it is possible, affability and general good fellowship would increase in the dining rooms, and the sparkle of conversation would be supplemented by champagne and sparkling burgundy. Of course, the academic side of the University could help in its own small way with snifters before each class. Red wine before a meaty lecture, and white wine before a fowl one.

If merely drinking wine did not make a dent in the surplus, Dillon could run wine in its showers, and the Department of Buildings and Grounds could spray the shrubs with rich, red, life-giving fluid. Naturally, late working students would burn the midnight wine, and clever students would lever be devising new means to use up the surplus.

Such a large scale undertaking must not lack administrative handling, and although the Adams House wine tasters have been extremely remiss in bringing the present situation before the eyes of the University, they are the logical group to handle the situation. By changing their standards to stress quantity instead of quality, they could easily devise many more ingenious methods to help the wine growers. The University awaits its leadership in this philanthropic enterprise.