OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS

Rome was not built in a day, new ideas can not be hurried, and progress must take its own slow course perhaps, but it seems no less unfortunate that the University dining hall project must again be delayed because of a lack of energy in carrying out a systematic and efficient canvass of the feeling of the undergraduates on the question. The decision of the Freshman Committee to abandon its petition after obtaining two hundred signatures means only one thing,--there will be no amelioration of the eating problem for at least another year, Five hundred names was set by President Lowell as the quota necessary to assure the University administration that a sufficient number of men were desirous of gastronomic reform to warrant the construction of the hall. It was also stipulated that unless the petition was filled before the end of the college year there would be no possibility of having the building ready by next fall.

The Freshman committee is not alone to be blamed for the present failure of the plan. Two hundred names shows an encouraging interest, but it is ridiculous to expect or ask the Freshman class alone to insure a University dining hall. In the first place many of the first year men look forward to election to clubs in the fall and others entertain vaguer hopes. It is too much to expect men in this situation to bind themselves to a club table even for a half year. In the second place it is merely aphoristic to remark that before there can be a want there must be a lack. Freshmen are still being fed regularly and adequately and like the grasshoppers are likely to enjoy the present season of harvest and plenty without much thought for the coming dark winter in Grecian one-arm establishments.

President Lowell and the administration are justified in putting the question directly before the undergraduates and waiting for an answer. They do not intend to start merely another eating place which will not fulfill an absolute need. As yet no attempt has been made to discover the sentiment of upperclassmen and graduate students except through the Union club table offer. The reception of this offer for several reasons, does not seem a true indication of the feeling of upperclassmen toward a University dining hall. The duty of ascertaining this opinion is patently one for the only official undergraduate governing body,--the Student Council. Three hundred petitioners from among the three thousand or more students in the upper classes of Harvard College and in the Graduate Schools, excepting the Business School, would assure the dining hall for next year. Considering the proportion of signers among a thousand-odd Freshmen it does not seem unlikely that a complete petition might be submitted to President Lowell this spring,--should the Council decide to act: