What We Wanted

Without any doubt there are in those pages a more formidable collection of statistics than ever the official "Year Book" or "Who's Who," knew. With a faint shudder, and appalled at the expense of spirit. I closed their pages, and set to wondering what could be done this time. Would it be possible to strike any kind of reasonable balance between the heavy conscientiousness of the club histories, now in theory twice as long as in 1924, and the wodge of literary stuff which the more ambitious of the 1948 Executive wanted from me?

So, with not much more than a vague policy in front of me, I began the long task of sending out letters to anybody who had ever made half a name for themselves in academic or literary circles. Dons, lawyers, fellows, doctors, professors, business men, students, housewives—all were paged. The result, of course, had they all answered, would have been disastrous. But, as previous editors have found again and again, there was no danger of that. One has to print most of that which comes, even if some of it hobbles in on one leg. . .