COMMUNITY OF-OBLIGATION

"The Associated Yale Clubs of New England meeting today in New Haven have learned with deep regret of the tragic accident at Cambridge yesterday and send through you their sincerest sympathy." This telegram, sent to President Lowell on Saturday, is another instance of the fine feeling of community of both interest and purpose which should exist between all college men at all times. That a group of Yale men assembled at New Haven for a convivial occasion should take the trouble to send an expression of sympathy sets a fine example-and impels one to think upon the reality of the need for further cementing the bonds between college graduates-and between undergraduates.

For, according to statistics, the percentage of college graduates in the country is even less than one percent. They have for that very reason, a double obligation in that they must use the tools they have (or should have) acquired in college, and in that they must encourage others to develop themselves without college training. And they must work always to raise the standards of the country.

Probably this community of feeling exists very largely among the graduates of colleges now; but it does not, to any great extent, actively exist among undergraduates. The reason is that many undergraduates do not fully realize that their own college has a definite purpose-more than just turning out "better citizens"-that it wants to do it by providing facilities for training the mind and the body, and by forcing a realization of duty to public organizations, particularly to government: duty meaning that they should join in their activities and contribute. Roughly, that is what every college worthy of the name, is trying to do; that is why undergraduates ought to seek to find, first that their own college is trying to do something definite, and second, that in that purpose it is working to the same end that are all other colleges. If the feeling of belonging to a special group can begin in college instead of after, so much the better; this may sound undemocratie, and indeed would be, if those in the group did not realize that their membership obligated them to service to community, country, and all mankind.