A PERIOD OF EXPANSION.

To a certain extent every period is a period of expansion for any university which is at all vigorous. Every year must see changes in faculty curriculum equipment and standards if the institution is to keep up with the advancing standards of the age. Sometimes, however, because of retarded or delayed expansion in a previous period or because the time has come when the old status can no longer be endured, a sudden and therefore noticeable period of expansion sets in. Whether the first or the second of the above causes is at work, it is certain that Harvard is just now in the midst of such a period.

The evidence is not meager. A new Stadium Bridge, the Freshman Dormitories, the Germanic Museum, the Music Hall, not to speak of the Widener Library and the proposed Gymnasium, are evidences of such a development in the matter of plant; the recent change in admission requirements, and the proposed system of general examinations denote new standards in the direction of scholarship; the Press Club, the Legal Aid Bureau, and the Navy Project, may be taken as indicative of a development which is bringing into closer touch the University and the community.

Now it is at just such a period that the University needs the support of all its members, undergraduate and graduate. Of course it needs contributions, but Harvard has never had occasion to want for funds when she has appealed to her sons. What she does need, and that more urgently than at any other time, is the hearty support of every present and past member in that most significant of all ways--interest and reputation. The Press Club could not have been founded at a more appropriate time. There could be no more fitting time and no period in which it is more necessary that the University should have a fair representation before the nation than that in which she now finds herself. Just now, when every sign points to expansion and further capacities for service, it behooves every one of us, in the first place, to recognize the signs of the times and, in the second, to lend the University heartiest support in this critical period.