Save What's Left

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

The somewhat unpleasant intelligence has reached us, via the CRIMSON, that "officials" feel they may be forced, with "greatest reluctance," to raise tuition, and, one might well suppose, board and room rates. It gives me very little satisfaction to inform these officials that their reluctance reflects my own only darkly as in a glass.

If the University finds itself in such desperate straits that it will be necessary to raise student tuition, I feel those students should have the right to suggest possible economies and to expect those expedient to be put into effect. I think we will all agree that the University is primarily an educational institution and that, while a reasonable amount of exercise--even in the form of organized athletics--is desirable, nothing should stand in the way of that basic character. A Democratic administration is engaged in taxing the middle class and private education out of existence, perhaps justifiably. A laboristic society, composed of the ignorant and immature masses is encroaching day by day on a way of life and thought that may be gone forever.

No matter how foolish the attempt to maintain the status quo may be, I would like to prolong that segment of it known as Harvard University as long as possible in its independent position. No matter how dearly beloved the old College football team (rah, rah) may be to the hearts of alumni, if that group is unable to support its emotional indulgences, students currently enrolled should not be expected to pay for them. The H.A.A. should be severely curtailed in its operation. Harvard should follow the University of Chicago's approximate twenty year lead and abolish football which is a farce and no game for a gentleman. The compulsory Physical Training program, besides violating the soi disant "freedom of a great university," is an unjustifiable expense. Biddies are a luxury most of us would be sorry to see removed, but if a higher education is to be indirectly refused capable students through the expense of this admirable old institution, they, too, should go. Felix Cayo '54