CONCERN FOR A CAUSE

There are at least two good reasons why students should welcome formation of the resoundingly titled "Committee to Save Education at Harvard". First, it shows an immediate awareness by students that the recent abolition of the middle rank of teachers directly affects them. Second, it is the nucleus of a group representing the undergraduate point of view on certain apparent changes in the teaching set-up. And the committee has stated that it aims to include all organizations whose members, as students of Harvard, are affected by the University's educational policies.

When the ten assistant professors were given their euphemistic "terminating appointments" at the end of June's first week, many students had left Cambridge for the summer. The reality of their loss did not strike home to others because the names of the fallen were necessarily screened from an unearned public disgrace. But even then the shock was great enough to startle a protesting group of students in English into action, and to elicit a sharp defence of sound undergraduate teaching from Phi Beta Kappa. Now the issue seems to be pressing more heavily on students' minds. They cannot help noticing that many experienced tutors left last year for more serene fields. They know that for several of their teachers in middle group courses between elementary and advanced work, this is the last year at Harvard.

The conviction that the drastic action of last June was unnecessary lay beneath all these protests. But the so-called "Committee to Save Education at Harvard" differs in one way from its forerunners. Enough time has passed since the first kicks were made over the firing of the professors for this act to jell into the symbol of a policy the committee fears. And it is on the basis of this concern that it now makes an appeal for student support.