ALUMNI CALUMNI

It is a pleasing and undesirably flattering fact that every little while some patriotic person bursts forth into impassioned prose on the subject of the connubial records of Harvard men. Recently someone proved that Harvard graduates add only 1.2--or therebouts--children per man to the population of the United States, and only the other day, a cynical gentleman, writing in the New York Times, pointed out in an irreverent article that if "all Americans go to Harvard, this nation will certainly die out." Fortunately this has become impossible, since the Freshman enrolment has been limited to 1000.

But "Cynicus" as the cynical gentleman rather proudly calls himself--quotes some statistics which he seems to consider very discreditable to Harvard. It happens that "thirty years age, the graduating class of Harvard consisted of 451 men and no fewer than ninety-seven of those unresponsive persons have remained unmarried," a fact which is enough in itself to suggest that there should be professors of match making as of fiction at a well-equipped university like Harvard. Actually, of course, match making can be learned by radio, or from correspondence schools or at any co-educational institution,--it seems hardly necessary for Harvard to set up a new graduate school, or even to incorporate the rudiments of the science in English A. "Cynicus", one fears, has missed the grand, the really subliare significance of his own figures.

After Mr. H. L. Mencken and G.B.S. have explained carefully and occasionally in words of one syllable exactly how great is the triumph of the bachelor, the discovery of one who believes that single blessedness is due to the inability of the man to win a mate is a distinct shock. The suggestion of match making instruction at a male college in the light of modern knowledge is "refreshingly naive" even as such a suggestion for a female college would be incredibly ridiculous. The indomitable ninety-seven deserve to be Chronicled in song and story as "Harvard's Own" and nobody else's. They rank easily with the "noble Six Hundred," the unconquerable "Three Hundred" of Leonidas, or even those immortal ten thousand who followed Xenophon from Atlanta to the sea.