Overstepping Their Mark?

(We invite all men in the University to submit communications on subjects of timely interest, but assume no responsibility for sentiments expressed under this head.)

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

This morning I read with great consternation your leading editorial on "Eight O'clock Nine O'clock." That the Student Council should take upon itself the regulation of College hours and the College fuel conservation program, and that the editorial chairman of your good paper should support so vivaciously and perhaps cocksure this step, is, I believe, an example of high-handed interference in the privileges and duties of certain College officials by immature undergraduates.

That holding the nine o'clock classes at eight o'clock "of course", would "economize coal," I would be given to deny even after considerable thought. Certainly the lecture and recitation rooms would have to be heated an hour earlier in the morning, which would entail absolutely no saving in fuel heat. And, as for the question of lights, I am fairly positive that at this season of the year when the sun is hidden so much we would not find the "inexpensive sunlight" satisfactory to rise by or even take notes by at the hour of eight. As for actual earlier retiring, there still remains the same amount of study and after all, the time of retiring is dependent on habit developed through years and changed, if ever, only with extreme difficulty.

Perhaps I am presuming too much when I gather from the editorial that University Chapel would be abandoned under the proposed plan. This time-honored institution, attendance at which is compulsory at many American colleges, comes at 8.45 every week-day morning, as, no doubt is well known. According to the suggested scheme, it follows, therefore, that unless the chapel hour were changed--say to four o'clock in the afternoon, all men having nine o'clock classes would be prevented from attending.

The matter of fuel conservation, as I understand, is in the hands of Mr. Storrow, and even though he may advocate "early to bed and late to rise"--"a surely ill-advised principle,"--so much as I dislike as a liberty-loving American, to be regulated under a rapidly tending Prussianistic system. I am nevertheless satisfied to leave it all to Mr. Storrow until he is proved incompetent.

Perhaps the editorial was merely a "filler" or, indeed, it may have been written in the same lighter vein as the one concerning the expected visit to America of a member of the deposed House of Romaneff, which appeared some weeks ago on your second page, or many others, which I have read and forgotten. R. A. MAY '18