Banning the Bodysnatchers

The Administration has gone too far. In outlawing Harvard's traditional wide-open mixers, it has ventured into areas clearly beyond its competence and risked antagonizing egos and libidos hitherto unreached by University Hall manifestos.

"Mixers will have to be predominantly Harvard-Radcliffe affairs from now on." Dean Watson said in announcing the decision. "Only outside students who share a common interest with the organization holding the affair will be admitted--M.I.T. Young Democrats may attend a YD mixer here, for example."

Dean Watson's idea of a hot time may be hitting the dance floor with an M.I.T. Young Democrat, but the swingers in Quincy House have been known to go for slightly racier fare.

Mixers serve the undeniably important function of shooting down each year's bumper crop of high school valedictorians and star quarterbacks. It teaches them conversational facility. ("Oh, you're from Fulton, Missouri? I had a cousin who drove through there once. He didn't like it.") It impresses on them the need for physical training. It makes them glad to study. It forces them to appreciate Cliffies for what they are--nearby.

It is depressing to think that incoming Harvard classes will never know the wonderment of a Leverett House mixer. They will come to this great University, pass through four years of education, and marry Wellesley girls whom they met at proper social gatherings. The University has no right, in ending mixers, to deny these incoming generations of Harvard men their proper amount of anguish.