By: The Commentator Editorial Board  | 

Looking Backward (Vol.1, Issue 5)

As this issue goes to press, the first term of the life of The Commentator draws to a close. All in all, it has been a short but colorful one as evidenced by the interest and comment that greeted each issue. For in the short period of its existence it has revealed to the student body the possibility of accomplishments which only the most hopeless optimists had dared to seriously consider till now.

The very appearance of The Commentator at the scheduled bi-weekly intervals was already a record breaking phenomenon in the history of the College and student activities. That a tradition so deeply rooted in the atmosphere of Yeshiva could be violated by an immature and struggling, young newspaper. was merely another omen that even greater surprises were yet in store for the institution. Needless to say, the predictions have long since been realized,.as even the most pessimistic will testify.

As the report goes out that this issue will be the last for the semester, the greatest sigh of relief will probably be heaved by the Administration. Theirs has truly been. a trying position. To witness after years of rugged individualism in institutional affairs the development in one year of an articulate student body is no very soothing tonic, any college authorities will testify. Especially is this true when a student body has been as meek and complacent for such a period of years as in Yeshiva and Yeshiva College.

The fact that students had many ideas to suggest was always realized by the authorities. But the sudden evolution from rank suggestion to placing the issue in the open where the problem could no longer 'be evaded, climaxed the fears of the Administration. The old methods of allowing the-requests to die from. old age or circumlocution suddenly became as out-moded as the horse in the Machine Age. In fact, the solution of the past turned out to be.a definite liability in treating with the exigencies of the present, for the more an issue was drowned in. verbiage, the more the fundamental points were brought into direct relief.

Calling faculty meetings to cope with this new and insidious force known as The Commentator proved to no avail, for there could be only one solution — falling the problem squarely. 

If The Commentator has succeeded in initiating this new and only logical method, its mission has been fulfilled not only to the students but to the Administration as well. The cases of delirium tremens that visited the authorities before each issue as rumors of the forthcoming “fiery” editorials flew back thick and fast “will not have been in vain.”