REVIEWER'S DISFAVOR SETTLES ON ADVOCATE

The following review of the current issue of the Advocate was written for the Crimson by Conrad Aiken '11, former President of the Advocate, and Tutor in the Division of Modern Languages.

To the current number of the Advocate Mr. Robeson Bailey, one of the editors, contributes a paper (with the somewhat unidiomatic title "Dilemma Dispelled") in which he attempts to define the Advocate's policy. He seems to feel that this requires explanation--one almost suspects him of feeling that some apology is necessary for the fact that the Advocate exists at all. To be an editor of a college "humorous" magazine, he sugegsts, is to have, among one's fellow undergraduates, a considerable position and prestige; to be an editor of a college "daily" is to acquire not only this, but also (possibly) a certain amount of monetary assistance; but to be the editor of a mere "Lit" is to obtain neither. Moreover (Mr. Bailey feels) to be an editor of a mere "Lit" is, ipso facto, to inherit a thankless task. He suggests that nobody wants such a magazine; that in its pure form it cannot be self-supporting; and that therefore in the nature of things, it must try to compromise. It must not too zealously devote itself to "aesthetic outpourings", because "it is admittedly difficult to get our undergraduate to read any sort of professed literary endeavor". In the cir- cumstances, should such a paper try to keep its place in the sun by catering "to the tastes of the majority"-- or should it run the risk of suicide and print "stuff after the manner of the Dial in its wildest moments"?

Editors Attempt Compromise

Mr. Bailey seems to advocate a kind of half-hearted compromise: And in this, the present reviewer believes him to be mistaken, There are plenty of undergraduates who are keenly interested in "aesthetic outpourings", or stuff after the manner of the Dial. The undergraduate is not afraid of literature. Bad literature, yes: but that is another matter. The trouble with most college literary magazines is that they do try to compromise--that they are timid, and afraid (this fear itself being philistine) to go all out for literary distinction. Playing safe, they achieve a kind of dreary neutrality. And it is a question whether this does them any good. One wonders whether it mightn't be proved that it is precisely when such papers are most successfully "literary" that they are financially healthiest.

Editors Play Safe

The current number of the Advocate suggests, with two exceptions, that the editors are somewhat disposed to play safe. Mr. Stout, in "The Keepers of the Light", contributes an exceptionally good story: swift, idiomatic, colorful, with a good deal of sense of character. His style is perhaps too nervous and choppy--the sentences too persistently short and periodic, but it is a sound story, and a vivid one. And Mr. Barnett gives us some extremely readable, and sometimes witty, theatre-notes. Both of these contributors write as if they did it with pleasure, and as if they weren't afraid of being "literary". Of the other contributors, not quite so much can be said. They play safe, they do not aim so high, and they fail, in consequence, to be very interesting. Life--one keeps thinking as one reads them--surely must mean more to them than this? And one turns back to the Dial, even in its wildest moments, with that sense of relief that one finds in the actual