THE CLUBS' AGREEMENT.

The CRIMSON re-prints in this issue the full text of the agreement entered into last spring by eleven of the undergraduate Social Clubs with reference to elections. This agreement is understood to be a pledge of their desire to co-operate in supporting the principles for which the Freshman Dormitories stand. Heretofore there has always existed at Harvard the danger of the clubs invading the Freshman class, falsely intensifying social consciousness, and splitting the class up into the elect and the non-elect. Fortunately a guarantee of democracy, liberalism and tolerance has existed here, the realization by the majority that the clubs at Harvard are purely social and it is therefore of little concern what some clubs do or who belongs to them. That guarantee of democracy has always existed, but it has always been weakest among Freshmen. To make it absolute, the agreement provides that "no club shall elect as a member any undergraduate before the fourth Monday after the opening of College in his Sophomore year, or before that time pledge or promise election, even by implication to such undergraduate"; other clauses forbid the taking of any individual pledge or promise to join a club before the Friday following the Monday named; and prohibit all canvassing before the opening of the Sophomore year. Knowing the position and nature of the clubs, the CRIMSON favors this means of preventing Freshmen from attaching undue importance on immediately becoming involved in the club system. Danger, however, exists and can only be eliminated by the joining of the few organizations which still elect Freshmen, to the movement already so propitiously begun. No progress, however, will be made at all if the eleven clubs who have signed the agreement consider it merely "a scrap of paper." The guarantee of democracy among the Freshmen demands the sincerity of its enforcement.