More Beanies

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

Today at Harvard there are numerous groups engaged in subverting the institutions and customs which have made Harvard, in the past, a unique institution in which the student was able to lead a gracious (if he wished) and independent life, free from the odious customs of the gum-chewing public. One of the most disadvantageous changes at Harvard has been the gradual and insidious insertion of Radcliffe into the Harvard scene. It is becoming more evident every day that Harvard will soon be no more than another co-ed school, saturated with spurious and degrading self-identification with the symbols of group solidarity, such as one finds in high schools and state universities. Undoubtedly it has come to the notice of many students that Radcliffe students are now beginning to affect beanies, a symbol of bovine regimentation. A small thing this, yet important in that it indicates in concrete terms the manner in which this essentially parasitic institution, Radcliffe, has been the cause of a trend toward a college in which the individual is of no importance. It is high time that something be done about this tendency, which will be the ruin of what little prestige Harvard has left. John S. Melloy '51   Robert G. Dederick '51