Dulce est periculum seems a rather extreme motto for a publication as mild and retiring as the Advocate. Usually considered a hangout for the "esthetes," sometimes not considered at all, the Advocate at present is a literary magazine in the strictest sense. Its primary aim, according to John Ratte '57, the president, is to "print the best of undergraduate writing, whether experimental or in a traditional form." But this is only a very recent development in the 90-year history of the magazine. Each board has its own special point of view, and at times the editors have really appeared to find danger enjoyable, if not sweet.

The five youths who first gathered under William G. Peckham's leadership in 1866, for example, advocated some astonishingly radical doctrines: chapel should no longer be compulsory; Harvard should become a University; and there should be closer student-faculty relationships. As any fool could plainly see, Peckham and his cohorts publishing the Advocate (then called the Collegian) were revolutionaries.

Although what the Collegian advocated was radical enough (for the time), it was perhaps more its attitude than its ideas that irked the college faculty. The newspaper not only criticized compulsory chapel, it did so through a mocking dialogue:

Socrates: Tell me, then, Glaucon, in the temple this morning how many were engaged in worship?

Glaucon: One, indeed.

Socrates: Whether was one conducting the worship and many listening, or do you say that no one was listening?

Glaucon: Not one, in truth, save by accident.

Socrates: And were there any who were busy marking the young men if they were absent?

Glaucon: You will find no one to deny it.

Socrates: How many, then, were there?

Glaucon: Four, O reverend sage.

Socrates: Then it seems that four were busy about the affairs of men, and one only about these things which concern the gods.

As one of the founders recalled in later, mellower years, "The tone of the newspaper was rather saucy." At any rate, whether because of its irreverence or its subversive ideas, after the first few issues the editors were ordered to stop publishing. Peckham, however, was indefatigable and sent untainted representatives to a faculty meeting to make some agreement. After much argument on both sides, the crisis was averted, and some weeks later the biweekly newspaper appeared, in a soberer form, as the Advocate.

Less than five years later, however, the first of several splinter groups broke off from the Advocate to form a new publication, causing the parent magazine to dub itself "Mother Advocate." This earliest offspring, like all the succeeding ones, was spawned for one basic reason, the Advocate's interests had become oriented exclusively in one direction, causing a few editors to grow disgruntled. The magazine's rabid interest in reform drove some of its more flippant members to form the Lampoon in 1871, leaving the Advocate more of a newspaper than anything else. In 1873, however, the CRIMSON appeared as a rival bi-weekly newspaper, and the Advocate board suddenly became more interested in the arts.

But since it attempted merely to entertain, another group of irritated editors revolted in 1875, this time to form the Harvard Monthly, which would have no truck with frivolity. Disturbed by the startling success of this new publication, the Advocate attempted to stem the tide by increasing the size of its paper, the extra space being devoted to serious material. In 1892, however, Advocate editors became "alarmed at the prevalence of tragic stories," and changed their line again. Until '95, it was felt that "the watchword of a useful college paper should be life, not literature." The '95 board, however, took a new tack, its emphasis being on short stories.