The Mail

To the Editors of the Crimson:

It will not come to you as a surprise to be told that your Confidential Guide is no more confidential than you intended it to be. We teachers have the morbid curiosity the flesh is heir to. By now you may be sure your pamphlet has driven its little wedge into the brain.

If you had labelled my performance "scintillating," or "nervously exciting," or "intrepid," I could write to you without misgiving. But you have blasted me with "dull." Already I see next fall's "dull" and "truculent" blotting the page.

Dear friends, have you considered the consequence of your epithet? How can I explain it to my wife? "But dear, the Crimson called you dull." How can I explain it to my children? "Daddy, the Crimson called you dull." How can I explain it to my literary executors? "The painful fact is that, in spite of his eminence, the Harvard Crimson called him dull." And suppose I were not married: "Oh, sir. No, sir. The Crimson called you dull."

My humiliation would be less, if you had spared the scrap of respect you could so easily have spared. I have just reckoned that in the past year I have corrected papers for 225 students. Was there really not one who said, "Well, not exactly dull . . . that is . . ."? Or didn't you leave a single one unpolled, so that in your largeness of heart you could have made clear the partiality of your judgment? Think how different the impression if you had given the statistics: Glazier, 225 students: polled, 224--dull. Then I could always have said, "Ah, but if they had inquired of Heartbalm, the result would have been different."

In short, sirs, I suspect you are a fraud. Lyle Glazier.   Instructor In English.