Lest We Forget

A quarter of a thousand Harvard men have not lived up to their promise. Failure in their pledges directly threatens the existence of one of the undergraduates' most potent powers for the good, Phillips Brooks House. The Student Council has collected some $8300 from 90 per cent of its debtors, a much better record that at this time last year, but that extra unpaid thousand determines whether students will continue to derive the benefits of their own organizations. Then, besides the urgency of the present problem, there is the usual number who contribute not a cent. This year, it amounts to one-fifth of the College.

Having cut its own operating budget, the Council has made more certain than ever that the student's dollar goes for what it was intended. This year, P. B. H., where most of the money ends up, allotted $300 more to scholarships, a year ago, considerably more to various charities, and sufficient funds to main the Placement Office, which has provided a necessary stopgap. So no one who has pladged his dollar or five dollars can be skeptical about the good use of his sacrifice.

But for the future, it could take a load off the backs and minds of the Council officers, at no great inconvenience to either the student contributor or to the Lehman Hall bookkeeping departments if a fixed yearly sum could be deducted from individual bank accounts by way of the term bill. Perhaps men in College should willingly accept their responsibility for institutions they have backed, but a slight expansion of effort on the part of the University would be a permanent relief to the Council, and would help the undergraduate acquit this responsibility more painlessly.