The building now used for the Germanic Museum was built in 1860 for a gymnasium, and almost before its completion was found too small. The Hemenway Gymnasium, built eighteen years later, was considered at the time almost ridiculously large and extravagant, and was then unquestionably the finest building of its kind in the country. It is now, aside from the addition of 1905, twenty-eight years old, and stands far down the list of college gymnasiums in point of size and efficiency. The beautiful building at Princeton stands at the top, with its enormous main hall excellently lighted and ventilated and equipped with modern apparatus, its open steel lockers, and swimming-pool a hundred feet long. It was built at a cost of more than $300,000, and is probably the finest in the world to-day. Hemenway Gymnasium is inadequate in size and ventilation for the large number of men who use it. On some afternoons in the winter the air is so poor that it becomes questionable whether men are more hurt or helped by an hour there. The shower-baths are extremely oldfashioned, and their successful manipulation is a formidable proposition even for the initiated; besides, they are too few in number. The lockers are poorly ventilated, and, being of wood, are undoubtedly less sanitary than steel lockers. However, the locker system might be relieved at once by a rule such as exists in many places, to the effect that all clothes should be removed from them and washed at least once a month. For the other points improvements and renovations are possible. A swimming-pool, too, would be a great practical addition, and a great attraction to men who do not use the gymnasium at present. The lack of a swimming-pool at Harvard is usually one of the first to strike the visitor from another college. The project of tearing down. this building altogether seems impossible and undesirable. It was a generous gift to the University at a time when a gymnasium was much needed, and it has ever been Harvard policy to preserve landmarks. It is true, however, that the gymnasium has come to be much more severely condemned than is just. For although the building is oldfashioned, much of the trouble is due to the crowding incident to the rapid growth of the University. This can be met only by the erection of a new gymnasium. It should be large enough to promise some degree of permanent adequacy. The question of its location is important. New college buildings are already under construction, and more are promised in the near future. At the present rate all the available building space in the immediate vicinity of the Yard will be occupied by lecture halls and dormitories within ten years. The great movement now instituted, which will ultimately extend the College precincts to the river, naturally suggests that the building be erected on Soldiers Field, which will then be as near the greater part of the College as Hemenway Gymnasium is at the present time. It might be practicable to keep the new building principally for candidates for athletics teams. This would draw a large number of men away from the old building, and would thus go far, together with the improvements suggested above, to render it adequate for the uses of men who were not working with any particular athletic squad. At present, after January 1, the athletic teams occupy the best part of the gymnasium, to the exclusion of a great number of men, undoubtedly in far greater need of exercise. The demand for an improved gymnasium is not new; but it becomes particularly pertinent at the present time, when our athletic status is far from being settled or satisfactory. The people of this country have seen Harvard win in the last twenty years less than thirty per cent of her final championship contests in the four major sports; and a college cannot ignore public opinion, for it is a public institution in the sense that any one may enter it who passes certain entrance requirements and pays his bills. Moreover, many of the most loyal graduates are beginning to grumble, and the great majority of undergraduates are dissatisfied, because our teams do not win a fair. proportion of victories. It does not seem unjust, in an age where fair play is so strong a force, that they should want the teams which they cheer for, the teams which represent them before the world at large, to be moderately successful. It is human nature to demand more than three football victories in twenty-five years over our greatest rival. It may be that we are not deeply enough interested in athletics to make to them the sacrifices which seem to be necessary for the developing of the best teams in the country to-day. It may be that it would not prove for the best interests of Harvard to make these sacrifices. The unanimous sentiment of both graduates and undergraduates compellingly asserts itself, however, that if we are to continue in athletic competition with the leading universities in the country, we must do so in such a way that we shall appear justly to the public and to our |