THE EMPHASIS OF LITOTES.

Lifo comments editorially on the diary of the late Mr. Charles Francis Adams, quoting: "I have tried Boston socially on all sides; I have summered it and I have wintered it; tried it drunk, and tried it sober; and drunk or sober there's nothing in it save Boston." The paper continues on its own responsibility:

"Boston's great value is that in a changing world it is able to keep on being itself and different from all other American cities. That is why people from the outlying districts send their boys to Harvard College. All the good of Harvard is that it is a Boston institution. What students from New York, Illinois, Missouri, California, Texas and such remote and imperfectly civilized places go to Harvard for is to get a taste of Boston. They get it, and it does them good, and they take it home and value it all their lives."

True enough, Harvard was old Harvard, and Boston was old Boston, when Life was but a prospect; and men who go to Harvard do "get a taste of Boston." But why the rash generalization that "all the good of Harvard is that it is a Boston institution"? Is the bespectacled city alone responsible for the development at Harvard of men successful in various fields,--in fact, for several splinters in Life's editorial staff? That Boston is but seven minutes by subway is no reason for attributing to blue laws and conservatism adverse or favorable criticism due to Harvard. Since representatives of the so-called "remote and imperfectly civilized places" are more active here proportionately than New Englanders, and since Boston's best profit as much from association with the "imperfectly civilized" as the latter profit from Back Bay's chill influence, some good in Harvard is not derived from Boston, drunk or sober.