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To the Editors of the Crimson:
GENTLEMEN: Your editorial of today on the system employed in History 13 and the expenses therewith connected, seems to be founded on a misapprehension. The purpose of, what you call "the machinery of the course," is not to increase but to diminish the expenditure of the students. It is a course requiring the use of many books, and students who cannot afford to provide themselves with a small library on the subject would find themselves handicapped. A pamphlet has, therefore, been prepared which contains, besides matter intended to be helpful for the special work of the course, a set of classified readings referring to several distinct groups of books. By the use of this system, in connection with the College and Evans Libraries, a student can get through the year without spending more than five dollars for books. The proceeds of the half-dollar fee, and any surplus ultimately resulting from the publication of the pamphlet, are applied to general class purposes, such as the purchase of several copies of the books most used in the course and the furnishing of necessary leaflets and printed lists of references. Otherwise much material must be put on the blackboard to be copied by each student. Perhaps you do not realize that it is a difficult matter to carry on a course for more than two hundred men, in which each shall have a fair use of the necessary books without buying them all for himself. To introduce written work for so large a course requires some rigid system, systematically carried out. If students prefer hour examinations they have not made their wishes known.
Very truly yours,
ALBERT BUSHNELL HART
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