For the second time in three years, something short of a religious crusade will take place in the Harvard Stadium a week from Saturday. From the streets of Medford that day, the Tufts student body will head for Harvard Square, by car and bus, full of enthusiasm and desire, knowing that this will be its big game for the year, and possibly for quite a few years.

And when Harry Arlanson sends his Brown and Blue Jumbos onto the field, they will receive support. rivaled in Harvard Stadium only by the spiritual support the University of Massachusetts gave its team in 1954. Look at Tufts' schedule and one can easily see why. The Jumbos open with Bowdoin this Saturday, and after the Harvard game, they will play in successive weeks: Trinity, Williams, Amherst, Rochester, and Upsala.

A victory over any of these other schools will perhaps delight Tufts alumni, and even interest the most rabid sports fan--but the defeat of Harvard would catapult the Jumbos to long-sought national notice; spread the word of their prowess to every school in the East; in short, give Tufts students a feeling of achievement they couldn't receive by winning all their other games.

Whereas, at Harvard, ticket sales will be their lowest for any game in the season, and whereas the game itself is one that must be won, not so much for the sake of winning, but almost to hold "face," at Tufts, it is all Arlanson can do to remember he has a game with Bowdoin Saturday.

Yesterday, in fact, he had this to say: "There has been so much talk about it since it was announced that we feel we'd like to play it and get it over with. It's the biggest game any of us have ever played."

There is no question, moreover, that this may be the best Tufts team ever fielded and Lloyd Jordan and his staff are doing their best to keep the Crimson "up" for the game--to avoid the defeat handed it by UMass, 13-7, two years ago. But with so many schools of Harvard's size to play, it seems foolish for the Crimson to persist in playing games with teams that "have nothing to lose and everything to gain."

If the policy is to schedule local colleges, who not Boston University, or Holy Cross, instead of UMass and Tufts? Harvard is the only Ivy school to play just one outside game, and it would seem that for this one game Harvard would do well to play another "big brother" rather than one of its "little friends."