Knothole Gang

At last Saturday's football game with Bucknell the yawning rows of seats across the field and in the bowl end of the Stadium were more than obvious to anyone sitting on the Harvard side. The attendance at the game, in fact, totalled only 9,000. At the same time, in New Haven, Yale's much larger "Bowl" was comfortably filled for a game with Brown that held only slightly more interest. The difference: Yale invites Connecticut Boy Scouts, church youth groups, and miscellaneous youngsters' organizations to attend this early season event at a minimum rate, charging twenty-five cents apiece for the kids and slightly higher prices for their leaders.

There seems to be little or no reason why Harvard could not make a similar gesture to youth groups of--if not the state--the metropolitan area. Our seating capacity is much less than Yale's, of course, but this need only mean that the project be less ambitious in scope than Yale's state-wide invitation. Administrative costs could be absorbed by the slight individual charge.

It is doubtful that anyone could prove Yale had any fewer fights with "townies" or recruited any football players from this yearly early-season project, but the advantages in long-term public relations are obvious. Harvard should undertake a similar project, opening up another crack in its ivory curtain. May-be the kids would even cheer for Harvard.