On the Shelf

The current issue of the Harvard Progressive is by all odds the best of the three thus far published. Pessimists who wondered whether the youngest of the University publications was not a still-born infant should take heart at the reviving slaps so jovially administered by certain members of the faculty in the "Economics Department Replies."

Herein the criticisms of "Karblem Bundo" in the March Progressive are refuted by Professor "E. Lin Berchan," J. D. Black, and Wassily Leontief; Professor A. H. Hansen bestrides the fence; and Mr. Spencer Pollard, supporting the truth of the charges, hands "Mr. Bunde" a round of ammunition gratis in the noble sentences: "My main criticism is the tacit assumption of the article that the chief interest of the Economics Department is in teaching students. We do pay a little attention to students, as little as possible generally, and if we pay more than that, the University soon ceases to pay us anything except the attention necessary to get us a job elsewhere."

It is doubly enjoyable to find good writing in a journal whose undergraduate contributors have often had crippling struggles with the mother tongue, and likewise to find controversy conducted with wit, urbanity, and detachment.

Feild Case

Less gifted in the controversy than the faculty is Mr. Loewi, author of an article on the "Feild Case." Without prejudice to the rights or wrongs of the now painful Case, a reviewer may point out the unwisdom of painting the devil all black. Dryden praised Achitophe the judge and Pope allowed Atticus true genius. Mr. Loewi shows a want of imagination, or at least of strategy, in claiming that the Department of Fine Arts was moved solely by personal vindictiveness in failing to reappoint Professor Feild.

I do not suggest that Mr. Loewi is disingenuous; he is trying to be judicial, but he has not mentioned the inevitable frequency with which men are dismissed after nine years as faculty members, nor given the Fine Arts Department a bow for its solatium of a year's salary, nor allowed himself to contemplate the many other possible causes for dismissal. Such an approach suggests passion rather than reason:

"What though the Feild be lost?

All is not lost; th' unconquerable will.

And study of revenge, immortal hate,

And courage never to submit or yield."

Saltonstall on Liberalism

Governor Saltonstall offers a simple and wise tribute to the Bill of Rights in "The Liberal Outlook," an article that will presumably find a place for the Progressive on the library tables of the now reactionary Bostonians.

"The Harvard Renaissance," an essay by John Reed '10 on the early days of the Socialist Club, deserves to be read by every undergraduate. The "lonely thinkers" and perfervid reformers in the Harvard of 1908 have yielded place to a more sociable and many-sided generation, as I believe. Yet the intellectual passion of that fragrant era ought to be marked and remembered.

Too Much Controversy

If a suggestion may be offered, it is that the editors would appeal to a larger audience than tthe student Union by going light on controversy, in which little talent has been displayed except by their opponents. The journalistic "sting" is a device that has been worn threadbare by the Progressive's elder brothers.

The Union itself has earned the genuine respect of the University not so much by what it has said as by what it has actually done. Literary essays on the personal experiences of undergraduates in social work, labor relations, and political life would find many interested readers. A final note: the staff caricaturists and poets should be compelled to exchange functions.