TRUTHS TRIVIAL

"Nothing is taught at Harvard that cannot be learned elsewhere in half the time that Harvard takes to teach it." With such an ultimatum does that worthy journal, the Boston Advertiser, place ashes upon the grave of any over-sanguine faith in Harvard University.

Nor are these motley manoeuvres of some mind weakened by editorial fatigue; they are the truth. Any lecturer could say his say in twenty-seven and one half minutes instead of fifty-five; any book could easily be cut in two--especially "Pamela"--; and most tutorial conferences might well be shortened if those engaging in them did not light cigarettes or talk of things lighter than Burton's masterpiece. Probably in any organization other than Harvard time clocks and efficiency experts make learning more rapid, more modern, more businesslike.

Yet the truth discovered by the Advertiser after all, means little. Though it is true that Pango-Pango is an odd name, the value of the truth is not over powerful. In fact there are many more valuable axioms--for instance the well remembered one concerning the necessity for leisure in a civilization before the advent of culture. The Boston journal, however, has not discovered that. Journalists usually don't. Leisure to them is incidental--like editorials on Harvard.