PASSING THE HAT

The beginning of the college year, in the opinion of all those whose temporary business is collecting money, marks an open season on the wallets of new and returning undergraduates. One is stopped on street corners with frantic appeals to subscribe to this and that periodical. Upperclassmen are halted by young and inexperienced canvassers and besought to lend financial support to institutions of which they themselves are officers. Elderly and nervous professors retire quivering within doors to turn out another chapter of The Great American Textbook. Even the President and Fellows take their walks abroad with their coats but toned and their hands on their socks.

It is almost unfortunate that the Phillips Brooks House has selected this season of the year as an opportune time to carry on its drive for funds. When one has been pestered to the point of madness by every variety of agent, including Max Keezer and Lee the Laundryman, the easiest answer is a stentorian and all-embracing "No!" In the case of the Brooks House canvasser, this refusal is not justified. The organization carries on a multitude of extremely worthwhile enterprises, and must depend for its support solely on what it can beg from case-hardened undergraduates. Its success in any given year is in direct ratio to what it receives in the form of checks and personal service.

Max Keezer is at times a valuable business ally: the Lampoon is a worthy charity: other importunates have their greater and lesser uses. But of all the persons and institutions which are now open to contributions, Phillips Brooks House stands alone. It offers to its supporters nothing but the assurance that their gifts are well administered and that their generosity is not entirely wasted.