A HARVARD FIRE-TRAP

Fire Prevention Week has come to join the long list that began with Safety First Week and has reached its zenith in Peace Weeks and Courtesy Weeks. And like the others it is more likely to serve as "an innocent source of merriment" than as a cause for sober thought. After all the idea of a calendar in which every week is the occasion for a Clean Up Drive in Zenith or a Fire Prevention Drive throughout the country, is amusing enough to the superior undergraduate.

But the problem comes home to the University in a way which is cause for reasonable anxiety rather than levity. Harvard Hall stands as a constant menace--a fire-trap endangering daily the lives of scores of men. The proper University authorities can respond to the idea of Fire Prevention Week in no better way than by facing the situation frankly and taking the necessary measures to safeguard the lives of those who are constantly using the building.

The problem is not new. With a narrow staircase and no fire-escapes, the possibilities of a terrible catastrophe in Harvard Hall have long been realized and long been pressed upon the University authorities. But the enlarged enrollment and the consequent increase in the size of classes meeting both on the first and second floors, makes the danger this year more real than ever before. It is the part of wisdom to act before it is too late.