Bell Lettres

(Ed. Note--The Crimson does not necessarily endorse opinions expressed in printed communications. No attention will be paid to anonymous letters and only under special conditions, at the request of the writer, will names be withheld.)

To the Editor of the CRIMSON:

I am honoured that you saw fit to take my article in the September "Atlantic Monthly" as the subject for your leader on the 29th September. My appreciation is, to be sure, a little diminished when I see that your editorial writer has not in the least understood what the said article was all about. He seems to have thought that I think it possible to make people pious by university compulsion--a ludicrous idea for even a professor to be supposed to hold. What I was really talking about, of course, was the absurdity of regarding any man as educated who does not understand both that religion, like science and art, is a racially valid technic for the discovery of truth, and also something of what that technic involves. Even an undergraduate journalist ought, it seems to me, to have been able to see that the two contentions are quite distinct.

I am also interested in your statement (in the same leader) that "the aim of education becomes more professional and less cultural" and that "fighting the spirit of the times is a vain and thankless task" which those in control of Harvard College ought not to undertake. This is very interesting. One has heard before, for sometime, that Harvard has sold out to the spirit of the times and gone in for "professional objectives" rather than "cultural ones." Dr. Flexner said something like that, and Dr. A. J. Nock, in their late internationally read books. I have heard it intimated in Oxford and Cambridge (England) combination rooms, and by professors in German and Scandinavian universities. Some Harvard alumni--notably Mr. John Jay Chapman--Have cried aloud that it is true. Now the CRIMSON assumes it and defends it--speaking for the Harvard undergraduates. One can only hope, sir, that the news of Harvard's surrender, like the one-time rumour of Mark Twain's premature death, is slightly exaggerated. Bernard Iddings Bell.

(Ed. Note--Mr. Bell who is warden of Saint Stephens College is referring in his letter to an editorial printed in the CRIMSON of September 29, entitled "With the Tide.")