The Corporation's Side of the Question.

To the Editors of the Crimson:

The Senior class should support the Corporation in their proposition to do away with the Tree exercises, unless they can be so modified as to do away with all objectionable features. Harvard has taken the lead in abolishing many barbarisms of the past. She has dealt death blows to hazing and other forms of brutality. Why? Because Harvard men have realized that such practices are degrading, that the spirit that prompts them is meanness and cowardice. The men most eminently fitted for hazing was the "thug." Of course, there were many very admirable men that took part in hazing, but they were carried along by public opinion. It is to athletics, principally, that is due the credit for the newer and manlier public sentiment.

Now, why should Harvard not abolish this remaining barbarism, the "scrap" about the Tree? You may dignify it by the name of scrimmage, but it is really nothing more than a disorderly "scrap." It is a form of fighting more characteristic of a scuffle of "thugs" in a barroom than of an assembly of students about to receive the Bachelor of Arts degree from the first centre of learning in America. Not a single manly quality is called forth. No premium is set on courage, strength, or endurance. On the contrary, the most noticeable feature of the whole affair is often some underhand slugging, "pasting" a man, as it is called. The remark is not unfrequently made by men that they are going "to lay for so and so! " What must the spectators think of Harvard students when they see one man "slug" another around the Tree on Class Day? The first thing they do is to hiss, as those of us who were at the last few Class Days well remember. Then they leave Cambridge with fine impressions of the Harvard man! The mere fact that only one such case of dirty work is liable to occur ought to be enough to stop the exercises. Finally, there is absolutely no regularity or order about the "scrimmage," except such as is furnished by the club organizations; and that is a regularity that none of us want. If the scrimmage had some of the points of football in it, there might be some reason for keeping it, but a pall mall rough-and-tumble exhibition can not be defended.

A strenuous plea is made in behalf of sentiment. That is all very well in itself. We all want to keep up the sentiments and traditions of Harvard as far as possible. But where a traditional practice is harmful, sentiment must yield. Human slavery was once a time-honored custom; but an enlightened generation abolished it. Hazing in American colleges was once a time honored custom; but, of late, it has been almost completely suppressed. So the argument for sentiment amounts to nothing if it can be shown that the custom is a bad one. Nor is it any argument to say that former classes have seen nothing wrong in the Tree exercises. Not to speak of the fact that the exercises have grown worse year by year, it is enough to remember that hazing and slavery were thought proper in their day.

H. G. GRAY '97.