[We invite all men in the University to submit communications on subject of timely interest.]

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

In the communication on "The Western Man at Harvard" in the CRIMSON of March 18, it is stated that the best way to bring more Western men to Harvard is for the Western graduates and undergraduates from the West to use their influence to send men here. I believe this to be true, but in addition, much more could be done by the College Office in giving out more extended information than is now given, in regard to undergraduate life at Harvard.

So few men from the Western cities come to Harvard as compared with the number that go to other universities, that a boy in a Western preparatory school can get very little accurate information in regard to life here. Whatever information he gets is apt to be misrepresented by some friend who is trying to persuade him to go to another university. The boy writes for a Harvard Catalogue, and in it he finds much about entrance examinations, choice of courses, and dormitories owned by the University; and little or nothing about student activities, athletics, and private dormitories. With all of these points in respect to other colleges, he is well acquainted. He has never been to Cambridge, and cannot think of any friend at Harvard to whom he can write for information. He applies for a room perhaps in Perkins or Walter Hastings, both of which are attractively described in the booklet on college rooms. When he arrives at Cambridge and is settled in his room, he finds that his neighbors are Law School men, graduate students, and a few upperclassmen, and that he is half a mile away from the centre of undergraduate life on Mt. Auburn street, about which he has never heard. To get into the geographical location in which he belongs, takes him a year. This alone is a serious handicap to the Westerner who enters without friends; moreover it is a handicap that might easily be avoided.

Inasmuch as there is no question but that the College dormitories are no longer the centre of underclass life, and cannot be made the centre by locating in them the few men who enter each year from the West, in sending out information about Harvard, the University should at least mention the fact that private dormitories and recoming houses exist. This could be done without advertising the private dormitories individually.

Another aid to the Western schoolboy looking for information about Harvard, would be a list of all the men at Harvard from his own city or state. On such a list there would probably be the names of some men of whom he had heard, and on whose advice he could rely. It would not be a difficult matter for the University to prepare a list of the men in the University, both in the Faculty and in the student body, from each start and from each Western city of over thirty-five thousand inhabitants, and to mail such a list to the Western boy writing for information.

There are other ways in which a more extended interest in Harvard could be created. The local Harvard Clubs in each city could offer prizes for interscholastic competitions of various sorts, such for instance as in athletics, school journalism, debating, and excellence in scholarship. This has been done, I believe with success, by one of the Harvard Clubs.

If an effort were made by the CRIMSON, the Lampoon, and the other undergraduate publications to exchange with as many preparatory school papers as possible, particularly in the West, there would be a quickening of interest in Harvard among Western schoolboys. It would be quite possible for the Advocate to run a story competition, in which the winner would be the school paper containing the best short story of any school paper of the month, the best story in each paper to be selected by the editor of that paper. A similar competition could be run by the Lampoon for the best humorous article. Such competitions could do no harm, and would certainly stimulate interest in Harvard among the preparatory schools of the West.  M. B. WHITNEY '08