(We invite all men in the University to submit communications on subjects of timely interest, but assume no responsibility for sentiments expressed under this head.)

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

The obnoxious publicity which has been given in some of the daily papers to an article that appeared on page 21 of "The Harvard Illustrated" for March 7th makes necessary some further comment than the corrections which have appeared elsewhere.

This article, purporting to be "by" me and yet purporting to be an interview with me, is in fact the grossly distorted report of an interview. In this interview I neither stated, nor intimated, nor had in mind any remotest criticism of Harvard nor yet of any other college or university. I was speaking of a general conception of education, or formal training, which prevails in Europe as well as in America. This conception and its application have, I believe, a defect which I think is at least partly responsible for the odd fact that, so far as I can discover, about eight men in ten, on completing their formal education, find the choice of a life work an extremely perplexing problem. This defect, however, is one which neither Harvard nor yet all colleges combined could do anything appreciable to remedy: because the remedy must be first applied at the very beginning of the child's formal education, that is, in the kindergarten or primary school. And precisely this is already being attempted by both the Montessori and the so-called Gary systems.

My theme, too, was remedy and not defect. I had aimed to give, in the "Illustrated," a bit of advice that seems sometimes to have helped young men when they face that troublesome problem of choosing a life career. In very condensed form that advice is, to bear in mind that those interests and proclivities which one acquired spontaneously as a boy, outside of the schoolroom, and which one has more or less kept up or more or less neglected during the more exacting years of high-school and college, that those proclivities are still a part of oneself. They may be overlaid by the thoughts and habits instilled by the formal education, but they are there:--there as positive advantages if they can be revived and put to use in one's life profession, but, if they are not so utilized, then still there as a resource of restlessness, vague discontent, lack of interest and zest in one's profession, and so forth. For those interests and accomplishments which are not turned to account and given scope in a man's profession constitute a restless though a "silent" partner. For example, let a man who in his boyhood has been devoted to outdoor sports think twice before he chooses an utterly sedentary career, or one who was early impressed and fascinated by the miracles of plant and animal life meditate carefully before he rushes into the more austere delights and the dazzling emoluments of Indic philology. This is in order to secure the participation and co-operation of the whole man in this our journey through life.

This was, I thought, a perfectly innocent subject for an interview, and not impossibly a useful one. But it was lost. And my remarks were gratuitously distorted into an unfounded and idiotic attack on Harvard University. This was done at some stage or other of the preparation, as a reading of the "Illustrated's" article makes evident, merely in the interests of journalistic sensation. And when the injustice of the article as printed was pointed out to the Board of the "Illustrated," these gentlemen with the readiest good-will and in the most honourable fashion did all that was possible to recall the article. And I thank them very cordially for their entirely correct attitude in this matter.

With no further reference, then, to the "Harvard Illustrated," and referring to the present case merely as a recent instance of a regrettable thing that occurs from time to time in American colleges, and not more at Harvard than elsewhere, I am led to one or two reflections, concerning the realization in college life of a thoroughly sensitive and discriminating loyalty. The least relaxation of this spirit on the part of any member of a college group may lead even inadvertently, to such serious misapprehensions.

In the present instance, firstly and least importantly, I have been put in a false light. Not the "Harvard Illustrated," but several daily newspapers have printed such a jumble of statement and misstatement that their readers will hardly avoid the conclusion that I, when about to withdraw from Harvard, have proceeded to "foul the nest". Such an Insinuation is not less than monstrous. I am about to leave Harvard entirely of my own motion, against the most cordial and friendly remonstrances of President Lowell and of my colleagues, and for reason many of which have no remotest connection with this or with any other institution of learning. I have few better friends anywhere than President Lowell and many of my colleagues here. On but few points of policy and on no point whatsoever of purpose and intent would my views differ from those which I know to be held by the present Administration of Harvard. In short, President Lowell and the present Administration command, and always will command, my most enthusiastic loyalty and support.

Secondly, if I had made or if a hundred of our professors were to make such accusations as have been attributed to me, every one of our college papers ought in my opinion to be more sensitively loyal than to print the rubbish. Not, I think in the first place, so much by reason of a blind loyalty, as because the accusations are patently unfounded. If, for instance, Harvard were in any least iota "literally robbing her students" (!!!), there would be some evidence thereof. And it is well known that any member of the University, from the oldest professor to the youngest Freshman would find the present College Administration open-minded and eager to consider his complaint, and energetic to remedy the evil. If my own experience is significant, and it can hardly be other, our present administrative officers are perhaps without exception beyond reproach in point of open-mindedness, integrity, intelligence and zeal. And then in the second place, we ought to feel and carefully to foster that elemental sentiment of gratitude and affection towards the Institution whose benefits we are here accepting. It is a sentiment which could, it is true, swell into a blind and fanatical loyalty; but also it is a sentiment without which, in due measure, any man becomes a monster.

Lastly, there is in and around the Yard a fair number of men with whom, in class or out, I have had some personal contact. Most if not all of these men I count as friends. They will probably have heard me mention, the word "truth"; and, in the course of a half-year, two or three other words. They will have observed, I hope, or if not my work here has been a failure, a certain attitude towards the universe and towards life--a fairly definite attitude. I desire these men, at least, to do what in them lies to foster and promote the sentiment of reverence and the sentiment of affection for the Institution of which we are here a part; to cultivate in the atmosphere here a certain reticence with regard to the affairs of the University, that discriminating reserve which is sometimes associated with the word "gentleman"; and to see to it that to any conduct or expression which tends to impair or to bring in question the dignity of Harvard, there shall naturally attach the plain stamp of infamy.

To these gentlemen I would commend one further word--'ARETE--which in its several and interrelated meanings will quite repay a voyage to the dictionary.  EDWIN B. HOLT