Globe Baloney

"Coeducation" was a sheep in wolf's clothing when it was first broached by the Teachers' Union in December. "Wolf" was again the cry yesterday when the Boston Globe spoke out of turn and incorrectly announced that "Harvard College courses will become coeducational at the opening of the next college term." But the results of the shouting and confusion are all too likely to be that the University's well-considered plans for formalizing relations between Harvard and Radcliffe will be defeated by the protests of back-to-the-kitchen traditionalists, that the University shrink from considering for the future what the Globe has announced as a fait accompli at the present time.

The University's plan for consolidating the administration of courses at the two colleges, as far as it is now known, is not coeducation. It is a reform whose effect on students is visible only in the catalogue, a measure which would have been desirable regardless of the war and its strain on the faculty and curriculum. Yet the cry of "coeducation," which its official denial, being reiterated today in Harvard Clubs throughout the country, can easily in Harvard Clubs throughout the country, can easily magnify a reform into a revolution. Rumor can be met only with action; the University must immediately and officially announce its entire program, or run the risk of its defeat.

But the University must not consider its present plans sufficient. The Globe's announcement may not in fact be part of the reforms now being considered, but that does not mean its substance is undesirable. In effect, it is a reiteration of the earlier proposal of the Teachers' Union that parallel liberal arts courses be combined to preserve for the duration as much of the liberal arts curriculum as possible. There have always been classes in the University in which such a combination would have been desirable; the war is only increasing the number of courses in which purely masculine enrollment is insufficient to warrant the Faculty's time and trouble. Admission of Radcliffe students to middle group courses is often the only alternative to bracketing them. This is not coeducation, but rather extension of a policy of long standing in the University under which graduate classes are open to women as well as to men.

The Globe's announcement was a shot in the dark that failed. If its effects are allowed to spread unchecked, it may defeat constructive University planning. Only if the merit in the fiction is seen can it help in a college catharsis.