"BROOKS HOUSE CAN WAIT"

While the President of the Phillips Brooks House Association expresses in his report the hope and expectation of a "sudden great expansion, in interest and in work done", the rest of the University is probably less sanguine in its outlook. It may even fail to agree that the Brooks House does not enjoy "its due importance and prestige among the undergraduates". After all, the Brooks House must inevitably be considered a thing apart. In no way does it qualify, nor can it be compared with other undergraduate activities.

The two vital elements of every true extra curricular activity are first, eager, spirited competition; second, a more or less public reward. Neither of these is absolutely necessary or even necessarily desirable for the relatively few genuinely interested in whatever activity they are engaged in. These few would row even if there were no crews; they would write sonnets even if there were no Advocate. And, correspondingly, the men who are interested in the work of the Phillips Brooks House are now engaged in it, without any desire for public recognition nor for soul-hardening competition.

On the other hand, it is hardly to be expected that work of this essentially more voluntary nature will be placed before activities of the relentlessly competitive type. The Brooks House will always have to wait--unless it chooses to inject some, kind of competitive spirit into its really non-competitive work and ideals. But there seems to be no reason to hope for great expansion. The Brooks House "has been respectable, conscientious and vaguely approved of"--certainly as much as may be said of any similar organization in any community; it is not reasonable to demand at Harvard a greater interest in Phillips Brooks House than it would receive, on its own merits in a busy, inherently selfish city.