Christmas Advocate Approaches Its Highest Standards, Says Reviewer

This review of the December Advocate was written for the Crimson by M. E. Colby '24, former member of the Advocate board.

This month's Advocate presents its wares in a typographically much more appealing fashion, especially in the departments of editorials and book reviews. The editorials in the Advocate have always had something to present other in the way of suave innuendo or of righteous exaggeration, and the book reviews were usually competent, but not clever, but one suspects that the unbroken columns of the editorial pages and the unbelievably microscopic print of the reviews presented too little attraction to the eye to tempt the reader from skipping. In the current issue, however, the editorials and reviews are made unusually attractive through liberal use of spaces and running captions in the editorial department, and the selection of a larger type and the introduction of a new sub-department. "Contents Noted," in the review section.

Reviews Described As Keen

One is tempted to linger over the editorials and reviews, for reasons which will become apparent. Under the chastely classical heading of "47 Obitt", the editors bestrew the grave of the Workshop with a few choice pleas and wave the reader on to more extended articles on the subject in the body of the magazine; they further regretfully observe, in the succeeding editorial, that Mrs. Grundy, in the person of the Library authorities, persists in seeing it through. In the department of book reviews, three new books are reviewed at length, and five more are graced with brief notes, always capable and frequently keen. The captions, however, betray a slightly ruddy tint: "Barrett Wendell and His Letters" is headed "Pink Spats and Humanism"; "Sard Harker, Nautical Soul-Mates"; and Cabell's new book, for some reason that for the moment escapes the writer's mind. "Beyond Garters."

The issue is termed, out of regard for the approaching holidays, the Christmas number, and paradoxically contains the best editorials and book reviews that have appeared in the Advocate for some time. There is, however, an anecdotal short story by J. N. Leonard entitled "How Christmas Cheer Came to the Bridge Gang' (in the form of five cases of rum), and a deeply religious poem by Whitney Cromwell, called "Christmas Eve."

Four Articles Distinctly Good

The four distinctly good things in the Christmas Advocate, however, have nothing to do with Christmas. The first in order is John Finley's "College for Knowledge." Here, after his brief excursion into the realms of sentiment. Mr. Finley returns to his former suavely acid insinuations, and quite convinces us that the entire Workshop affair is after all, merely another absurd and inconsequential eddy in the comic stream that college is. Hugh Whitney's "Ballad", next in order, is exquisitely done and comment seems superfluous Whitney Cromwell unleashes the ironic whiplash of his tongue in "The Salesman", and Charles Allen Smart, in the last of the four distinctly good things in the number, presents a vivid picture in "Exploration."

The rest is more or less negligible. Mr. Edsall leaps to arms, and proclaims, in a curious metaphor, that the gods of the University are sleeping at the switch. Mr. Doughty writes four pages far above the common ken; Mr. Elliott contributes a story; and there are a few pallid lyrics. But, all in all, the number is a decided success; in fact, it nearly equals the almost forgotten days when the writer was an undergraduate of the College, when the Lampoon was very young, and the worthy paper in whose columns this review is printed lay, a charming infant, mewling against the hirstute breast of her fond and indulging parent, the Harvard Advocate.