FREEDOM OF THE LAB

Chemical students at Harvard are equipped this fall for the first time with a first rate building and adequate apparatus. Harvard men at last are able to say that their facilities for scientific investigation approximate in excellence their opportunities for the study of the humanities. It would be well to determine, however, if these facilities may by some means be made as available to the undergraduate as are such institutions for instance as the Widener Library. The iron bound regulations of Boylston Hall in regard to closing hours have for years been an inconvenience and in many cases a downright hardship. Every student in even the most elementary chemistry course knows the annoyance and loss of time engendered by the inexorable cry "Close up; time to close up! When he has assembled a complicated apparatus and proceeded half way through a difficult experiment. Even though five minutes might suffice to save an hour's work, if no leeway is given the student one hour is wasted.

Every year many an undergraduate chooses courses other than the sciences because of some valuable outside activity, which requires his afternoons. Were he able to do his laboratory work in the early evening or late afternoon he would still he able to take part in such things as organized athletics without the sacrifice of much desired courses in chemistry. The presence of a few attendants in the stock-room would of course be necessary at all times when the building were open, but there is this same necessity in regard to libraries and reading rooms. There is every reason for the removal of the penalty of day time immuration from courses in the sciences.