THE LIBRARY MERGER

The Transcript, whose editorial is reprinted in an adjoining column, states the case for Boston against Councillor Fitzgerald's objection to the Harvard Business and Boston Public Library merger. The advantages of the merger to Harvard are less tangible. The University's business library will be enriched to some extent. Beyond that there is almost nothing beside what general satisfaction can be gained from watching the University perform a useful public service. One is inclined to agree with the Transcript that "the whole arrangement is plainly one under which the city of Boston will receive much more than it gives."

In his claim that the merger is unconstitutional the Councilor seems, however, to have scored a point. Harvard has been particularly unfortunate in its attempted mergers for some time. The proposed consolidations of Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and of the Divinity School and Andover Theological Seminary were both quashed by Supreme Court decisions as illegal or unconstitutional. In the present instance again, though minor in importance, legal facts have apparently been overlooked or not given sufficient consideration. In a University possessing one of the greatest law schools in the world the repetition of these slips is strangely anomalous.