0
THE
MESSENGER
13
~bitorial As the Richmond College staff of THE MESSENGERprepares to relinquish its duties to its successors, there are certain matters connected with the magazine which we should like to say. While this periodical has never been able to practice much choice of material or to direct what might be called an editorial policy, the tenor of the contents as a rule are characteristic of the editors' tastes. The present staff has tried to maintain a standard of neither too conservative or liberal a nature. Feeling that a certain amount of respect for stability and conformity with rule is worthy of college students' work, we have been wary of encouraging work done in the spirit of much of the so-called freedom. Although there have been no iron-bound rule of discrimination against modernism, we have tried to avoid too much of such material. Again the happy medium. In the opinion of the present staff, it is not advisable to publish extensively from the research work done for the English and History Departments. While such articles may add, as it has been said, an amount of dignity and solidness to the contents, they are also so much deadwood, since students can find similar articles in text-books. The familiar essay, or more specifically, the personal essay, likewise, is not quite the standard which THE MESSENGERshould require. The juvenility of the majority of these essays lowers the tone and general quality of the magazine. Poetry is the great problem. Sad to say, most of the verse in college literary publications is little more than doggerel, or at best so stilted and high sounding that its very aff ectatiousness renders its unreadable. What should the editor do? There is nothing he can do. Occasionally there have arisen one or two students who have shown considerable ability. The retiring editor feels that there have been at least three contributors who have added markedly to THE MESSENGER with their verse. The short story is by far the most popular and the most successful type of writing being undertaken by college students. And