WHERE CHARITY BEGINS

The zealous social service workers of Phillips Brooks House are missing an opportunity. Instead of going to distant Roxbury or South Boston they might save themselves carfare and do Cambridge a good turn by opening a campaign to Clean Up Harvard Square. The muckers that haunt its precincts are a favorite subject for humorists:-- their pleas for "scrambles"; their shrill persistency in disposing of "Globe, Trawler, Transcri't, and A-Merrycan"; their conversational invasions of unprotected dormitories, are all notorious. But the social service workers seem to have overlooked them. If we stop to think of them seriously, the dangers in their path are evident. The examples they see among students are not always good for their tender years. With free access to many dormitory rooms, temptation is open to them, and there are frequent reports of petty thefts, not serious in themselves, but indicative of a warp in the boy's character that may result disastrously.

Perhaps there is some good reason why the Phillips Brooks House ignores the possibilities which the Harvard Square urchins offer. It may be because whereas in Roxbury and else-where there are already well equipped settlement houses, Harvard Square has none in its vicinity. If that is the case an appeal to the civic pride of the neighborhood would not be unprofitable.

When recruiting for social service workers the Phillips Brooks House calls attention to the fact that we owe a certain amount of service to the community in which we are temporarily living; that if we want to make good citizens out of the boys of the slums we must keep them off the street. These are good arguments when applied to Roxbury--they would be even more effective when applied to the ragamuffins of the Square.