Conditioning Rule to Stay

Conditioning classes will start for the fall term on Wednesday along with the University's other courses, and despite student protests, they will continue at the rate of four hours a week.

In reply to the Student Council's recommendation that the requirement be reduced to four a week, Dean Hanford said last night that the Faculty did not foresee any relaxing of the compulsory athletic program.

700 Offer Excuses

The Council advised the reduction because the Dean's Office has been swamped by over 700 applications for excuses from the exercise. These requests, which the Council considered justified, were granted to Seniors writing honors these and students with heavy laboratory schedules.

Dean Hanford's statement:

"We do not contemplate any reduction in the number of hours of required physical exercise. In fact, we regard it as a duty to students and to the country to maintain as effective a program as possible. Although various official statements express some difference of opinion concerning the part which the colleges should play in the training of students in war time, all the information which has arrived from the Army and Navy and from other bodies in Washington agree in emphasizing the importance of the physical conditioning of students. Those who are responsible for the administration of the program at Harvard feel that our policy should proceed along lines of strengthening rather than weakening our plan of physical conditioning. We feel that all requests for excuses should be most carefully scrutinized and that neglect or abuse of the program on the part of students should be dealt with firmly."

This week students must exercise three times, starting Wednesday.