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THE editorial article on the Busar in the last number of the Crimson seems to have been the cause of no little disturbance among our cotemporaries. But those who complained of it as being too harsh could hardly, we think, have fully realized the facts of the case. A re-statement of certain of these facts may not be out of place. The Board of Directors of the Memorial Hall Dining Association is a body elected by the members of the Association, that is, by the students who board at Memorial. This Board of Directors, besides having in its charge the arrangement of various minor matters pertaining to the carrying on of the Association, is empowered to make and put into effect any changes in the regime of the Hall that may seem good to them, provided that such changes meet with the approval of the Corporation. In short, as far as the management of the Association is concerned, the Directors have absolute power, subject alone to the will of the Corporation. The Dining Association occupies Memorial Hall by permission of the Corporation. The Bursar is the agent of the Treasurer of the University. As such, he is vested with certain powers with regard to the leasing and assignment of rooms; and of late he has been the person to whom application was to be made for the use of the halls for lectures, concerts, &c. But it is to be observed that Memorial Hall, for whose permanent use the Dining Association obtained a regular agreement, was not included under his charge. Now what conceivable official connection can there be between the Bursar and the Board of Directors of the Dining Association, that would bring them under his sway? The Dining Association does not pay rent to the College, so that the Bursar, who, except in respect to the lecture halls, acts merely as a money agent, a convenience to transfer the rent to the owner of the property, would not have even the shadow of the control over them which he believes himself to possess over the occupants of College rooms. "How, then, could there be any trouble between him and the Directors? For surely the Bursar must have studied his own duties and powers too carefully to overstep them." Let us see. In March last the Board of Directors voted to allow students to bring ladies to meals in the small room adjacent to the main hall of Memorial. As to whether this was wise or not, we have nothing to say. It was an innovation, but such an innovation as the Board had a right to make in case the Corporation found no fault with it. There was ample time for the Corporation to object if they wished, for the measure was not to go into effect until nearly two weeks after it was voted upon. The Board of Directors put up on their official bulletin board a notice of the new plan. On the day following, the Bursar, without a word of explanation, and in defiance of all rules of courtesy, had the notice torn down. Now, how is it possible to believe that the Bursar was endowed with jurisdiction over the Directors such as to make his act justifiable? He lets rooms to the students. Would he be able to force his way into a student's room, and remove a picture from the wall because its coloring displeased him? And yet his act at Memorial was exactly equivalent to this. He entered the hall, to which he had no official claim, and insulted those who rightly held authority there. Nay, more, he did not simply show a contempt of the Directors, but offered an affront to the Corporation; for it was a usurpation of their rightful prerogative. Was he really ignorant of his functions, and did he only discover afterwards that the Board of Directors was not under his control? Then why did he not do what the most ordinary instincts of courtesy would have dictated? Why did he not, when he found out his mistake, apologize, in some form, for his ill-advised haste? As it was, with no explanation of, or excuse for, his act, the Directors could merely infer that what he did was a wilful and malicious usurpation of authority. Unfortunately, too, his previous reputation for lack of civility was such as to raise every presumption against him. That the Bursar is an official of the College but makes the indignity the more to be censured. For a private individual who did such a thing would simply be despised for his ill-breeding; whereas, in an official, few things are more culpable than an overstepping of his powers, either through ignorance or perversity, or than a gross violation of official decorum. Of one of these offences the Bursar is guilty. Will he try to clear himself?
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