We invite all members of the University to contribute to this column, but we are not responsible for the sentiments expressed.

To the Editors of the Crimson:

We should like through your columns to criticise adversely the action of the directors of the Harvard Dining Association in closing the gallery of Memorial Hall to visitors after Vespers.

As far as we have been able to learn, this action was taken by the directors because some members of the association had so far forgotten themselves as to act in an ungentlemanly manner. In just what this ungentlemanly conduct consisted we are not told, but for the purpose of this communication it makes no difference.

We believe we voice the sentiment of a large majority of the members of the Harvard Dining Association when we say that the action of the directors was hasty, uncalled for, arbitrary, inadequate to the purpose, and an insult to the well-behaved members of the association.

The action of the directors was hasty because it would seem that before a time-honored custom was abolished other methods should have been tried. It would seem, too, that in an action so important, it would have been wise for the directors to have taken time to learn the sentiments of the association.

It was an uncalled for action because the punishment was not proportioned in the least to the offence. The ungentlemanly conduct, if any existed, was that of a few members. Under these circumstances only individual members should have been reprimanded, but instead the whole association is punished by having, their friends excluded from the gallery at a time most convenient for them to come. Certainly the indiscretion of a few members did not call for the punishment of all.

Again, the action of the directors was arbitrary. Undoubtedly the board of directors is a representative body, because every member of the association has a voice in its election, but in the nature of things there must be a limit to its power. In this action, it seems to us, they have utterly disregarded the right of the majority.

The action, even if justifiable, is inadequate, because it leaves the gallery open to visitors at other times, and, in so doing, renders them liable to the same insults and at the same time places no check upon the conduct of the ungentlemanly members of the association because by this precedent of the directors they will have no fear of punishment as individuals.

Our last and most important reason against the action of the directors is that it casts a slur upon the whole Harvard Dining Association. The matter will be made public in the shape that the gallery at Memorial Hall was closed because the students acted ungentlemanly towards visitors. Such an accusation against the whole association would be false, but its falsity would not remove the slur that rests upon the well-behaved members of the association.

H. C. AND F. B.