AGAINST A NEW APPLETON

Ordinarly, it is youth that is accused of excessive idealism, while age is credited with practical judgement. The alumni committee for a Harvard War Memorial has reversed this proverb. "A large majority of the members", says their report, "declared themselves in favor of a new chapel". Certainly this view will meet with less hostility than last year's report, which favored a purely abstract memorial such as a monument, belfry, or fountain; yet the committee's new suggestion will hardly appeal strongly to undergraduates, at any rate.

It is useless to reiterate the arguments for and against a "practical" memorial. But it seems reasonable to think that the practical and the ideal should be combined; and it is emphatically certain that a new chapel would not combine them. The college religious service no longer plays any part in the lives of a vast majority of students, nor is it likely to become any more important in the future. A new building would hardly change this situation, and a lifeless, neglected edifice would be the most ignominious of tributes. Furthermore the very idea of such a suggestion would have seemed sentimental and not a little ironical to the men whom it has intended to honor. The CRIMSON believes, as it believed last year, that a building which all will use, and which will be a constant active reminder of the ideal which it represents, is the only memorial worth considering. A dormitory, as Harkness at Yale has proved, can be made to combine admirably the utilitarian with the ideal: and a memorial gymnasium would have the double value of service to the youth of the future while it commemorated most appropriately the service of the youth of the past.