PRAISES THE NEW ADVOCATE MAKEUP

This review of the January number of the Advocate was written especially for the Crimson by Merie Colby '24, a former Pegasus of the Advocate.

When the Advocate, at the beginning of this College year, appeared with a totally new makeup and decided changes in matter, there were many of us, I fancy, who suspected a flash in the pan, and settled ourselves back comfortably in preparation for panning the fresh. With the appearance of the fifth number of the Advocate in its improved form, however, the tensed muscles of early detractors have perceptibly relaxed, and a noticeable feeling grows among the unliterary and the extra-porticum that the paper, rather more than ever, has something individual to say. Physically, is is crisper to the touch, its Caslon old-face pleasanter to the eye. As to delights beyond the eye and finger-tips, the new Advocate seems to carry behind it a surer authority and a genuine masculinity. Abandoning abstraction, the creation of several new departments, the brightening up of the old, and a kind of general tone of health and vigor begins to call the languid clubman and the lily-fingered litterateur from their opposite poles and give them a common interest in an important undergraduate occurrence.

French Essays Give Versatility

In the editorials of the January number--always a good index of a periodical's life--Pegasus' eye rolls with unwonted vigor. The subjects are sufficiently ephemeral, the style is sufficiently light and sufficiently serious. The feature article, "The Publishing Business as a Career", by Lyman Beecher Stowe '04, carries obvious interest and is appealing in style. "The Valley of Dry Bones", by J. H. Kaye, is a readable essay on the study of history at college, maturely considered, and blessed with sufficient indignation to commend it to those whose literary palate is pleasantly titivated by the sauce of anger. "College or Knowledge", by C. C. Abbott, pumps at a well never dry, and draws from it several bucketfuls of good sense.

There are two stories--"Beat the Dutch", by D. H. Munroe, which is pleasant and capable, and "The New Organ", by Donald Gibbs. Mr. Gibbs has a distinct and restrained style which shows much promise of future development. The versatility of the present Advocate is exemplified in the "Three Sketches", by Warren J. Nash, written in surprisingly excellent French, and not negligible from a literary point of view.

Congreve-O'Neil Letter Delights

It is good to see that the editors no longer include verse "fillers", that bane of the undergraduate literary magazine, and that there are only four poems, each of which has an excellent reason for inclusion. They are all competent, with the exception of "The Coast Farmer", by Walter D. Edmonds, Jr., which is a great deal more.

Again your reviewer recurs to the excellence of the departments. This month's correspondence from The Gentleman Probationer Abroad, by Eduardo Andrade, agreeably supplies us with information not readily gleaned from the public prints, and assumes so pleasantly that we know much more than we do concerning literary and political affairs of the Continent. The Book Reviews are capital. The Theatre department resumes its customary dryly shrewd observations, while in Letters from Celebrated Persons we are this month delighted with an epistle from William Congreve to Eugene O'Neil.

Is Well Worth the Price

In glancing back at the lines he has written, your reviewer feels that his praise, while not stinted, is nevertheless just and to the point. If the courtesy of the Advocate had not forestalled him from purchasing his copy at the newsstand, he had readily parted with thirty-five cents for so entertaining an hour. There is in the current number surprisingly little that is adolescent, little that does not bear the stamp of mature literary discretion. In your reviewer's humble opinion, the rejuvenation of the College's oldest paper has resulted in a charm, a distinction, and an engaging literary candour that should win the commendation of the President and Fellows as a worthy expression of an important side of the College's life, as it has already won the praises and goodwill of graduates in all parts of the country