THE FINAL CRISIS

After having triumphantly survived several grave crises scattered throughout its distinguished lifetime Beck Hall has finally passed into the ruthless hands of cold blooded business men. Not to preserve its historic association, not to aid the University in providing convenient lodgings for its students, but merely to stretch as best they may their own pocket books, have the latest purchasers of Beck Hall sought its ownership. If financial expediency so dictates they may even compass its total demolition.

For a building comparatively young, as Harvard buildings go, and entirely outside the hallowed precincts of the Yard, Beck Hall has accumulated an extraordinary amount of tradition, and on more than one occasion has been saved from destruction by its sentimental associations. It saw its hey-day in the gay nineties when the more fact of residence within its walls constituted a mark of social distinction, and when many of the men who have since held high rank among Harvard graduates were associated with it. As a monument to the Harvard of twenty and thirty years ago Beck Hall will always live in the memories of nunterous Harvard men. The building itself no longer occupies, however, the position it once did in the life of the College; as a memorial it is little more than an empty shelf.

The name of Beck Hall can never be forgotten as long as the gay nineties and the great men linked with them hold a place in Harvard history; but for the building itself present undergraduates at least will be able to shed little more than a forced tear.