Arnold Group Solicits Aid of Alumni Clubs

The Association for the Arnold Arboretum will try a now approach in its two-year fight for a judicial hearing on the arboretum controversy by raising the issue before the annual meeting of the Associated Harvard Clubs in Cincinnati next month.

"We hope to present a motion before the business meeting of the Clubs to establish a committee to investigate whether or not the University, as trustee of the Arboretum, should submit the matter to the courts," Endicott Peabody '42, secretary-treasurer of the Association, said last night.

"Such an alumni committee, however, would not be expected to pass on the merits of the case," he said. The committee would present its report to a future meeting of the Harvard Clubs.

Alumni Concern

"If the University falls to live up to its obligations, its failing is presumably within the realm of alumni concern," Peabody said.

The Association has charged that the Corporation, by transferring books and botanical specimens from the Arboretum to the new University herbarium, has violated its agreement to administer the Arboretum as a public trust.

The Association has maintained that the administrator of an educational trust should seek instruction from the courts in a case of alleged trust violations.

Through arousing alumni interest, the Association hopes to force the Corporation to bring the issue before the courts and vindicate the University's reputation as a scrupulous guardian of trust funds.