COUNCIL ELECTIONS

Today fifteen hundred juniors and sophomores will receive ballots with which they may elect an entirely new Student Council. This is a decided change from the old system of ex office membership, and is therefore, an improvement. In past years, any accomplishment by a Student Council, such as those of the 1924 body, has been the exception to the general rule of absolute inertia, and has provoked incredulous comment from the amazed undergraduate. Like John Harvard, who until lately had never moved, the Student Council until this year had never acted.

Like all improvements, however, the present one in itself is no cure-all. Although the members of the new Council are to be elected by a general vote, general votes are frequently unintelligent, and, particularly at Harvard, quite often almost non-existent. The unending succession of exhortations and appeals which invariably accompanies a class election, until enough votes are cast to make a choice valid, is sufficient indication of the passionate enthusiasm with which the undergraduate voter takes to balloting of any yariety. If the members of the new Council are to be anything but figureheads, the electorate must, exercise a certain discriminating interest which has not in the past been strikingly evident. Because of this obvious weakness, the new plan must remain, temporarily at least, nothing more than an experiment. The earliest indications of success or failure will be largely determined by the interest displayed in these first elections, and by the calibre of the candidates chosen for office.