TOWN AND GOWN

The city of Cambridge prides itself on its industrial progress, and justly, for while most of New England has been undergoing a serious business slump, Cambridge has seen new and prosperous factories rising within its limits. The latest indication of the city's progress is the painting of a huge sign, in ten-foot letters, on the roof of one of its factories, to signify to the airplane routes of the future that Cambridge lies below.

This city is a curious anomaly. In the beginning, and for long afterwards, Harvard was Cambridge. A few decades ago the present city started mushrooming up, with nuclei in business and manufacturing centers far from Harvard Square, and the University, once the center, was swallowed in a city extraordinarily occupied with industry.

And thus, in the natural course of events, Cambridge has become more and more the busy American city, as it has lost, conversely, the atmosphere of a quiet academic center. The boosters are in control, and their little signboard at the Anderson Bridge represents the attitude of the city: bold capitals proclaim industrial growth, manufacturing leadership, Kiwanis and Rotarian meetings; and, in almost shame-faced letters below, Cambridge mentions its educational institutions. The calm that surrounded the nineteenth century giants of Cambridge is gone; and the student of the present must piece out an education as best he can amid the clang of street cars and the whirr of machines.