Review of Current Advocate

During the last few years, urged on by somewhat unjust criticism from other colleges and by the uprearing of a new temper from within, it has become the fashion here at Harvard to work for "college spirit." To further it, so many flaming lamps of advice are thrust into student hands that some are quite unable to decide what torch shall light for them the academic road and others burn their fingers in trying to carry too many. With the current number of the Advocate as a text the reviewer ventures to give some advice on a condition hitherto passed by; a condition which the renascence of college spirit has but little changed,--the shameless neglect of the college papers.

College Spirit Demands Papers' Support.

It we take the latest Advocate as a fair example of the average issue of this fortnightly, it will be found to contain editorials, several short stories, an essay and three selections in verse. There is a family likeness, it is true, between this number and the many others that have gone before, but can so minor a fault repel the undergraduate? The editorials are interesting in that they reflect the student's opinion of his college world, Mr. Thwing's essay is a genial trifle, Mr. Hurst's and Mr. Peterson's stories meritorious though not distinguished; the poetry is worth reading, Mr. Mariett's "Cat Tails", in fact, is remarkably careful in its observation of nature and skillful in its metrical construction, and the best thing in the number, Mr. Byng's "Tale of the Lowlands", convinces the reader that the author is really familiar with the material out of which he made his little tragedy so pathetic in its loneliness.

The Monthly, another college paper with a subscription list far below its deserts, was reviewed on Saturday last.

It has been said that at our athletic rival subscription to the college magazines is regarded as one of the most important evidences of "college spirit." And so it is. To allow our college literary papers to linger from year to year in such a condition that their best friends advise them to unite that their "two weaknesses may form one strength" is disgraceful.

This is the hey-day of "College spirit" at Harvard. The reviewer takes this occasion to call to the attention of its creators this deficiency in their program, and to express a hope that the near future will see the college magazines with the circulation they so richly deserve.