Unimportant?

To the Editor of the CRIMSON:

I have had brought to my notice an issue of your paper containing an interview with Dr. C. N. Greenough, in which he seems to think that I have, in my annual report, which was somewhat widely reported in the press, intimated that Harvard is about to start small university colleges. He rightly maintains that the new "houses" are not colleges at all. In this he is right. I have said in that report: "It is purposed to divide Harvard undergraduates into houses where they may life in closer contact with resident scholars. To many, the plan seems less significant than the wide publicity given it would indicate. There seems to be no real desire to disintegrate the student body in respect to the teaching, which is to be university given rather than house given. Nor, apparently, are the colleges to be self-governing units, each really developing a life independent of the others. What the plan will amount to, it is yet impossible to say."

Because I would not have you think that I share in the general impression, due to widespread newspaper stories, that Harvard is trying anything particularly important toward educational reform, in this her house plan, or that I have been engaged in any misrepresentation, as might be inferred, I ask the courtesy of your columns for this note. Bernard Iddings Bell.   Warden and Dean.   St. Stephen's College.   Columbia University.