HERE TODAY, GONE TOMORROW

Where is Harvard? Today it's here, tomorrow it won't be. Tomorrow night it will be just rows of empty windows, starting glumly out over the Charles. The cops will tread their quiet beats, and the commuters will wait peacefully in the Square for the Arlington bus, glad to be rid of the students rudely elbowing their way through the crowded safety zone. In the Yard, the snow will fall, eventually to melt away undisturbed by the usual hands of the students scooping up the flakes and pounding them into snowballs. Passengers in the great airliners flying over Cambridge will still look down and say, "See all those brick buildings by the river there, that's Harvard." But Harvard really won't be there any more.

Christmas means home, and to Harvard home means everywhere. Home of Pittsburgh, to Atlanta, to San Francisco, to Steamboat Springs, to a thousand cities and towns--that's where Harvard will go. Fathers will greet sons; there will be musings and laughter: "So you're in your Junior year! Well, it won't be long now." Church services, Christmas trees, and parties will crowd the days. Parents will hunger for talk, and give advice. Harvard will be at home, in a thousand places at once. Some students will lecture their bewildered families on the war, on politics, or on religion; brothers and sisters will laugh at their seriousness. Others will waste their substance in gaiety, while doting parents shake their heads but shrug philosophically, "Well, he's only young once, and he gives the girls such a good time." It's all over in two weeks; Harvard gives and Harvard takes away.