OPEN WIDE THE GATES

Tonight the Crimson opens its doors to the class of 1941, as the annual competition for the News, Business, and Photographic Boards begins. This day is not merely a repetition of what has occured every fall. It is more than that. It marks the first opportunity which members of the class of 1941 are offered for obtaining positions on the paper they will control in three years.

In opening a competition of this sort, the CRIMSON offers the Yardlings what is probably their finest chance for engaging in extra-curricular activities since entering college. The place of journalism, photography and advertising in the modern world cannot be summed up in a few words, because the influence of these three mediums is too far reaching in its scope. From the point of view of the undergraduate who contemplates "coming out of his shell" and emerging in the whirl of post-hour-exam celebration, no more valuable field of endeavor could be open to him.

Advantages to be gained from an active position on the CRIMSON are innumerable, but paramount among them is the resultant knowledge of the University. Because of the peculiar nature of newspaper work, in a large university like Harvard, every incident, change of policy, athletic event, in short, any happening concerning that university must be known about by such a newspaper. From striving towards this goal, members of the boards, candidates for membership, become steadily better acquainted with the college and the way in which it is governed. In no other activity can these advantages be realized to such an extent.

One of the primary characteristics of this annual competition is the passing on of a trust from the Senior editors to those who now come to fill their places. This is a trust which has been passed on every year since 1873, and with the increase in the size of the university has come a corresponding increase in the responsibilities of its newspaper. As the CRIMSON enters its sixty-fifth year of publication, it welcomes the new class which is to control it three years hence.