REPRESENTATIVE OPINION

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

Richard Levy's article on Student Representatives in Friday's CRIMSON was a fine study of an important problem. In my own opinion, I think he showed great perception in analyzing the difficult relationship between the representative and the represented.

The logic was well taken that described the drift of a student representative from the stage of realizing his fellows' indifference toward his service to that of irresponsible, self-centered action. Yet I wonder whether this reasoning was not carried too far and applied too broadly. To say that the responsible representative is a rare bird takes too little account, I think, of several important factors: First, there is no single group of "representatives;" a student who leads in one activity follows in most of the rest, and so never loses the sense of membership in the community. Secondly, and more important, the article takes too little account of the quiet but no less vital work of conscientious students.

Certainly, there is an occasional "politician" (in the worst sense of the word) whose egotism eventually finds its way into moral and political laxity, but there are over eighty College-wide undergraduate organizations, not counting the numerous House groups. How many students are there in these groups--organizers, producers, managers, entrepreneurs, paper-pushers, as well as political administrators--who never take the step toward irresponsibility? Mr. Levy's reasoning is true in some cases, to his regret and mine, but applying it as broadly as the article does is doing a disservice to the hundreds of students involved in some way or other with being "representatives" who consistently give loyal service to the College community.

What was missing from an otherwise well-rounded essay was an appreciation of the intellectual service that often accompanies the work student leaders do. Most of us agree that one goal of education is, in the happy phrase of Master Brower of Adams House, "a mind that speaks for itself." Perhaps we all forget once in a while that such a mind needs a forum in which to be heard, a platform on which to stand, or an audience to enlighten. In practical terms, this means that the enormous intellectual value of college drama would be lost to both actors and audience without the producers who don't walk out in the middle; that college writers can be heard only through the representatives of the CRIMSON, the Lampoon, and the Advocate, representatives who do try to do a good job; and that even future politicians need the training that may mitigate the perils of adult political life.

I don't mean to be complacent, for the real problems raised in the article cannot be solved by any smug account of the achievements of extra-curricular groups at Harvard. Perhaps, however, the way to a solution lies in just those people who make up the great majority of student representatives--the exceptions to the rule of irresponsibility. Edward Segel '60