Criticism of March Illustrated

The aims and methods of the Illustrated Magazine differ in important respects from those of most of the student publications in the University. It makes no attempt to confine its list of contributors to the College; it deals with subjects of general public interest as well as with intramural matters; and besides literature it seeks to cultivate the art of the illustrator and to practice topical journalism. While this breadth and diversity of aim give an opportunity for appealing to a wider range of interests, they necessarily make the magazine less characteristic of Harvard, and less illuminating of the life here, than are some of its contemporaries.

The advantages of this policy are represented in the current number by a set of short but extremely interesting articles on the planet Mars by four eminent men of science. Professor W. H. Pickering, whose portrait forms the frontispiece, contributes a compact descriptive article on Mars and its canals, the effect of which is curiously modified by Professor A. E. Douglass of the University of Arizona, who explains away most of the canals by giving them a psychological origin in the sensory apparatus of the observer. Professor E. S. Morse writes interestingly of "What the Martians Might Say of Us," reversing in imagination the direction of the telescope. Mr. Nikola Tesla is thoroughly characteristic in the firmness of his belief that we shall soon be signalling to Mars by electricity.

Of the more strictly Harvard part of the number, the chief article is that of M. S. McN. Watts on "The Athletic Situation." This is one more protest against the assumed hostility to intercollegiate games of the special investigating committee. Its argument, like that of most students writing on this topic, is vitiated by assuming that wholesome competition stands or falls with the intercollegiate system. The excessive emphasis here given to the importance of intercollegiate sport in maintaining the influence and reputation of the University seems to the reviewer only another proof of the charge that athletics are viewed by many students in a totally false perspective. A. H. Elder describes the growth of lacrosse in the American colleges, and makes a plea for its further development. A sonnet, "Notre Dame de Paris," is smoothly written, and the octave has some excellent lines.

R. M. Arkush's story, "The Greater Hypocrite," brings together one of the most unpleasant groups of (let us hope) fictitious undergraduates that can be met with in College fiction. As a sketch of types of character, it suffers from the mistake common in stories in the College magazines--that of attempting to describe in half a dozen pages people whom a skilled novelist would require a volume to make real. There are appreciative reviews of Professor C. E. Norton's new book on Longfellow and Mr. Underwood's volume on gardens. The editorial on the lectures in the Union is well written and to the point. The fullpage drawing is not good.