THE URCHINS OF ALLSTON

Harvard social service workers, to whom much due credit flows continually, should abandon their lines of settlement houses for a moment and consider the plight of the unfortunate children in their own backyard. Not only does Harvard at present do nothing for the urchins of Allston, that part of the city of Boston which lies under the shadow of the stadium, but by her presence Harvard actually hurts them.

Unclaimed during their afternoon hours the children spend a large part of their time on or around Soldiers Field and the Business School Field. They present a perennial problem to managers and caretakers, who, lacking the time to give moral instruction, must be continually routing the children by chasing them off the forbidden fields with oaths and other epithets. If not chased away, the urchins would steal the athletic equipment. The more they steal, the more they are chased, the more they are chased, the more they steal. Thus the situation presents a sort of vicious circle, from which nobody ever emerges, as a high birthrate in Allston equals the rate of supply of Harvard managers.

Officials have observed the situation for some time. But realization has been slow in arriving that these children are bad because they have never had an athletic field or a football of their own. Eve was never more tempted in Eden than these on the outskirts of a grass plot they must not walk on. It isn't that the children deserve any attention, though of course they do. It is simply that Harvard both holds out the temptation and hides the whipping rod.

Harvard may not be able to open a field for their exclusive use, but it can at least help educate the urchins of Allston in the paths of honesty. Brooks House, preferably, should investigate their school conditions and see if it isn't possible somehow to organize a play program for them.