"GEE WHIZ, MA'AM"

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

Yesterday, I was strolling along the hall adjacent to the offices of the Mathematics Department when--splat! --a secretary ran headlong into me. "I'm sorry," she yelled from the end of the hall, "another phone call for Professor Tate. But I guess he isn't in his office after all."

On the way back to her office, the secretary, being a kindly person, gave me a cookie and helped me to my feet. "Gee whiz, ma'am," I said, somewhat bewildered, "doesn't each professor have a phone in his own office?"

"Goodness no!" she gasped. "Don't you know phones are expensive? Frankly, I'd be happy if I had one of those phones with lighted pushbuttons, so that I could tell on which extension an incoming call is.

"But everybody is always dreaming up ways to spend money. Some people want us to buy good chalk for the blackboards; some want us to buy more than one copy of frequently used books for the math library. And, would you believe it, one boy once asked me why we sell the mimeographed lecture notes. He thought students should get them free. Rank socialism! Besides, with the high salaries we pay our teaching fellows, we can't afford anything."

"That's a point." I said. "I get paid all of $1350 a year teaching one class three times per week--though I do have to grade all their homework and hold office hours. I have a friend at M.I.T. who is paid $2500 plus tuition just for grading papers several times a semester, but everybody knows that M.I.T. is part of the military-industrial complex."

The secretary didn't seem to be listening. "Gosh," she sighed, "it would be nice if the professors had their own phones. I wouldn't have to go racing around the halls so much. But I guess it's hopeless--even if Harvard could afford such extravagance. First thing you know, students that would be calling their professors to ask questions, and that would interrupt their research work."

At this point, the phone rang, and I felt so sorry for the poor secretaries that I decided to write the CRIMSON and ask people not to call the math department.

What do you say, folks? Let's give the secretaries a break! Radon Nikodym,   Teaching Fellow