GYMNASIUMS AND MEMORIALS.

The greater part of the "Memorial Gymnasium Number" of the "Illustrated" is devoted to a plea for the erection of a great, modern gymnasium as a memorial to those Harvard men who died in the service of the nation. Although the high purpose of the proposal can not be doubted, and although the benefits to the University would probably be great if the plan were carried out, there are one or two points in the case which merit investigation.

We of course admit the great, the pressing, need of a new gymnasium building to take the place of Hemenway, long antiquated and outgrown. Even more obvious is the ardent wish of every Harvard man that in time there be erected a fitting and enduring memorial which may ever stand as a concrete tribute to those who fell--a tribute that will recall to successive generations of Harvard men the glory and honor due that gallant group of three hundred and four soldiers and sailors.

But we doubt the advisability of an attempt to combine these two, for the reason, which the "Illustrated" seems to have overlooked, that a gymnasium is not suitable as a memorial. No matter, how elaborate or how modern it may be, no matter what care is spent on planning and construction, any such building will eventually become antiquated and useless--even as Hemenway is today, although when the latter was completed in 1879 it was revolutionary in its magnificence. In the "Harvard Herald" of October 2, 1883, we read "It can fairly be said that the new Harvard Gymnasium has been the parent or sponsor of almost all the modern college gymnasiums of the country." President Eliot's annual report for 1881 stated that "The Hemenway Gymnasium fulfills the best hopes of its usefulness."

Let us have a new gymnasium by all means but let us look further before we settle on it as a War Memorial. The monument which is finally erected for this purpose should not be one that will perish at the end of two score years, but one that will still carry its noble message to future classes at the end of two hundred.