Little Enjoys New Crimson And Memory

(Secretary to the University, Master of Adams House.)

How about the CRIMSON of the 1918 period as compared with the paper of 1948? One must of course be impartial and objective. And yet nostalgia is inevitable. Each graduate has reverently and sentimentally laid a wreath on the warm memories of his own bright college years. "Why, don't you remember back in the old days when we used to fill up the Crime with . . .?" He tends unconsciously to brook no comparisons. That makes for difficulty.

Perhaps not so difficult, however, for a former editor who has been officially in and about the Yard for the greater part of those thirty years. His memories after all should be verdant with new annual growth. First, let us look at the modern counterpart of the old 1918 student. Today's undergraduate is a more mature, a better poised, and a must better informed person. No middle-aged academic official would take issue in that point. And it is a basic factor in the present trends of college journalism.

CRIMSON stories for the most part nowadays are well handled and well written. They are more lively and readable. There is an alert nose for news among the editors and candidates. They have taken a leaf from the metropolitan press and a certain national weekly magazines, it would seem. Certainly the editorials, both in style and scope, are superior to those written at the time of the First World War. Special articles, columns, features like The Vagabond, show greater originality and imagination.

But, someone is surely asking himself, what about the red ink side? There are some debit entries. Carelessness with facts and background in some instances is apparent; indeed, occasionally a story is printed which is entirely wrong. Again, for the older editor at least, their is too much smacking of the journalistic lips over the stripteuse who may currently appear on the local stage.

But taking into account the imperfections and failings of all human institutions, this commentator much prefers for his breakfast table reading the 1948 version of "The Official University Daily."