AN ELUCIDATION.

In another column is to be found a communication which takes the CRIMSON severely to task, especially for its recent editorial on the exclusion from the Library of books which contain prescribed reading. The writer affirms that our statement to the effect that certain of the proscribed books are excluded by professors who are their authors or editors, proceeds either from "ignorance or malice." To support this view, he states that the profit on books of an educational nature is very small. Whether the return is small or large is beside the issue. The point the CRIMSON wished to make is this: It does not seem right that a professor should realize any profit at all by excluding a book from the Library unless the work of the course cannot be satisfactorily done without constant reference to that book in the lectures. It the book is only needed in order to prepare for section meetings, why should every member of a course be obliged to pay nearly two dollars for it when a supply in the Reading Room would save the class this burden?

The writer of the communication then states: "Your attitude is the more censurable because you have of late advocated a fine sensitiveness about the reputation of Harvard." In this he is mistaken. The CRIMSON has "advocated of late" nothing to this effect. The only possible reference to such a subject appeared in a recent communication, and we were no more responsible for its contents than we are for those of today's communication.