BIER FOR WATER

The passage of the Congressional beer bill is an event which should not pass into the limbo of Government 1. That the nation may soon quench 3.2 per cent of its inordinate thirst, spurs the the interested observer to inquire whether the movement will spread to the House dining halls. Much water, not unmixed with nobler elements, has passed under the bridge since the University last dispensed larger with magnificent indifference. Whether she can recapture the first fine careless rapture of pre-Volsteadian days is, of course, another question.

But a grand conspiracy of circumstances has made such return almost imperative. Without beer, it is obvious that the tutorial system can never come to any real fruition. Dining hall conferences might take on a rich new aspect of reciprocal frankness and loquacity were the reign of iced cocoa to be challenged. For the tutorial system was transplanted from its lush native environment into an unfamiliar desert where it has been cruelly desiccated and may soon be destroyed.

The historian, moreover, will not forget that the House take their architecture from a period when every inn boasted "Drunk for a penny, dead drunk for twopence." Even the Greek golden mean could not sober up the great tutor Person. These may be harsh truths, but Harvard can not with impunity appropriate the more outer trappings of Georgian buildings. Every discreet and rebellious panel years to look once more upon the honest revelry of ale. And the shades of the old Moors can not but rise in anger at the aridity of the common rooms which their antique arches crown. The Canutes of the south have retired in ignoble confusion. Cambridge also must struggle in vain against the triumph of a reborn tide.