ON OUR WAY

It is encouraging that the Student Council should pay as much attention to the Freshman Class as it did last Friday. The Council votes show that the group of students who most need assistance has been recognized, and that help will be granted. It is to be hoped that the trend of reform which started two years ago and which has been considerably strengthened over the week-end, will continue until the Class of 1941 or '42 can avoid most of the struggle of readjustment which has been disastrous to so many who have preceded them.

Under the system as it prevailed two years ago, the average Freshman was forced to take courses in which he was treated as inconsequential, he had no conception of what the Union Committee was supposed to do, and the almost total absence of guidance through the opening mysteries of Harvard left him in a slough of Despair from which many of his fellows failed to emerge.

To this condition, the Council remained utterly inattentive except when it was necessary to pay bills or collect pledges. Pressure was exerted through other agencies and the courses were reformed to a great extent; two members of the Council forced through a revision system of Freshman elections which made them somewhat intelligible; finally, the Union Committee became conscious before its term expired and made some order out of the chaos of first year extra-curricular activities and provided reviews for Freshman course work.

From such a beginning, it is possible that the ultimate goal of an almost entirely self-governing and self-contained Class organization can be reached. If that status is maintained, it will be impossible for professors to neglect their younger students again and the mental disorder of the novice in Cambridge will be greatly quieted.

The Council is to be congratulated for at last recognizing this situation. The revised Red Book will aid in coordinating the Class, the fund will give it an independence which it has hitherto lacked, and the scholarship will give the men working on the Red Book a feeling that they are working for the benefit of their own Class rather for the Student Council.

The remaining problems with the exception of the Adviser System, are largely of detail, and will take care of themselves with a minimum of sympathetic assistance. English A should be revised; the profits of Freshman undertakings should be allowed to accumulate until the Class can act as its own guarantor under the supervision of the head proctor; the preceding class presidents should become the ex officio advisers of the Union Committee so that a continuity can be established; above all, the Advisers should be given enough time to act as the Great White Father to their charges. And with the the multiplicity of encouraging signs, we may now hope that these are indications of the Golden Day which will hold sway in the Yard.