"BOOST THE BUSINESS SCHOOL" SAYS LAMPY

"The expression of a mood" is Lampy's own half-apologetic explanation of how he came to devote his attention, rather actively, to the Harvard School of Business Administration. The S. B. A. got on Lampy's nerves, as it has on those of some older Harvard men. A "Business School Number" is the result, and the college community is the gainer by the neatest chaffing we have had for an academic generation.

The best of the fun lies in the fact that the School so largely brought this on itself. An upstart in the Harvard world, it has seen fit to ignore the fact that it has a perfectly respectable ancestry, although not of the best traditional stock, deriving from the long-ago time when Professor Dunbar convinced his colleagues that an economist might be a scholar. With the cock-sureness of youth, the School chose to demonstrate in its own way its preference for such things as the newest classic slogan, the clarion call to "Take Baby and Go."

Hawthorne's "Scarlet Letter" compacted into four words was well worth the $1000 bonus.

However, the School has had its material reward. It must accept what goes with this. And if certain of its manifestations seem laughable to those who are being brought up in the older way--which continues to be possible at Harvard--the Business School ought not to be surprised.

This issue of the Lampoon is in its essentials a "special report" of the Business School as a part of the University. A group of undergraduates, not seeking academic distinction but not on that account less zealous for the good name of Harvard, set themselves the strictly academic task of reporting to the world at large on a part of the University which has sought to attract the attention of the public.

It is gratifying, to a member of the teaching staff, to observe that these undergraduates have acquired the knack of "go-getting". They evidently know how to find the evidence they want, and they have considerable skill in presenting that evidence effectively.

Another side-light on Harvard students ought not to be overlooked. It is even more contradictory to the accepted notions as to present-day undergraduates. The boys who got up this professedly funny paper, know their Bible. They may not know it all by heart, but they can make incidental use of allusions, which come in too aptly to have been derived from any dictionary of quotations or other mere work of literary reference.

The Lampoon, ever since the war, has been flirting with the idea that it ought to be a grown-up humorous publication, rather than the Harvard Lampoon. The temptation is constant, with all college journalists, to ape the fashions of their seniors, oblivious of the fact that those same seniors would be the first to change their own ways to meet the wishes of a different clientele. This year's Lampoon board, by good luck or greater intelligence, has demonstrated that the Lampoon can do the thing which its editors want to accomplish, best, when they turn its attention to what they know the most about--Harvard. The Faculty might profitably appoint a Committee to investigate the theory that the reason Harvard is just now in the doldrums, is because the Lampoon has been remiss of late in making run of obvious absurdities in our university life.