THE DEAN'S LETTER.

BEFORE the attack made by a policeman upon a party of students in Cambridge Street a few nights ago is quite forgotten, it is due to the young men concerned that a few words of explanation should be given to the public, and I venture to trespass upon your space for this purpose, because both my official and my personal relations with most of the members of the party enable me to speak of their character and standing with full knowledge, and also because by the courtesy of the Police Commissioners I was present at the hearing and listened to all the evidence on each side.

As the Police Commissioners are reported to have decided that the officer used unnecessary force and to have warned him for the future, the affair might now be dismissed if it were not that several of your contemporaries in their comments upon it have assumed that the students in question were a disorderly party engaged in a gross disturbance of the peace. I desire, then, to state for the information of all who are interested in the case, that the occasion which brought these young gentlemen into the city was the annual dinner of the active members of the Phi Beta Kappa Society, of which they are members; that, as is implied by their membership of that society, they were the highest scholars of the Senior and Junior classes; that their names would be recognized at once by anybody familiar with the roll of students as representing the most studious and orderly element of the College, and that they are known to me - by reputation in all cases, and in most by personal acquaintance also - to be gentlemen, whose principles, self-respect, and steadiness of conduct, and whose word may be relied upon with absolute confidence.

That they did not depart from their usual character on this occasion was shown at the hearing in a manner which I think must have satisfied any unprejudiced listener. It was there demonstrated that the dinner was quiet; that little wine was used; that the party were, without exception, sober; and that their only offence against good order was the singing of college songs when on their way through Court and Cambridge Streets. In short, in no part of the evidence did anything appear which could in any degree discredit young men with the College authorities, or which need give any concern to the most sensitive of their friends.

I observe that in some quarters there is a disposition to taunt these young men for being routed by a single man, without resistance, and for demanding his number, instead of fighting. What language of reprobation would have been thought sufficient for their conduct by the same critics if the students had met violence with violence, I cannot conjecture. But I am sure that their manly forbearance and self-possession, under gross provocation, should secure for them the respect and commendation of every citizen who values the peace of the community.

CHARLES F. DUNBAR.

DEAN'S OFFICE, HARVARD COLLEGE, Feb. 28, 1880.

THE above letter by the Dean to the Advertiser ought certainly to convince all who have heard no more than the newspaper accounts of this difficulty of the unfair light in which the journals placed the matter before the public. We cannot repeat too often to those who are not acquainted with the &Phi. B. K. Society that the character of its members is above reproach for quietness and orderly conduct, and we are glad to record the reprimand passed by the Police Commissioners upon the uncalled-for brutality of the officer. In future, it may teach policemen to distinguish between gentlemen and roughs, in their attempts to keep, the peace.