SIMON SAYS--

A clipping from The Harvard Alumni Bulletin, appearing in an adjoining column, declares as one with the privilege of knowledge that opposition to the House Plan is "inconsiderable", and is bound to decrease rapidly. This optimism might pass unnoticed, a species of whistling to keep the courage up in the face of the facts, if its zeal did not plunge into a series of generalities as unwarranted as they are sweeping.

First of all, The Bulletin assumes that the disapproval of the undergraduate papers has rested upon inadequate information rather than upon intelligent understanding, and mentions the CRIMSON as an instance. As a matter of fact, the editors of the CRIMSON have kept in intimate contact with the development of the House Plan and have founded their objections on consideration of all the facts which could be obtained by anyone from the University authorities. And yet The Bulletin's supposition of the ignorance of the CRIMSON indicates the jealousy which has guarded from the public much prompt information about the House Plan. If The Bulletin assumes that an undergraduate paper has been in the dark, what has been the illumination granted to all Harvard men?

The Bulletin itself, apparently, sees clearly enough. Besides speaking for the undergraduates, it takes the voice of the alumni, the faculty, and even the social clubs, and makes them all join in one grand assent. On what authority it says these things, except that of habit, it does not publish. The CRIMSON has never pretended to reflect a general undergraduate opinion, but its editors believe that they are correct in suggesting that undergraduate opinion would not choose to be interpreted by such a conformist medium as The Bulletin. The latest essay of that paper is merely another expression of that tacit assumption of approval which has been characteristic of official Harvard more than once in the past.