Letter to Conant Backs Geography

Claiming that geography is "the first essential basis of any area study," 18 graduate students in the Regional Studies Far Eastern program dispatched a letter to President Conant yesterday protesting the University's action in abolishing geography as a field of concentration.

The China students' letter suggested that "if economy is necessary, Harvard can far better afford to cut down in areas of technical training, where trade and professional schools elsewhere are better fitted to serve," than in a field essential to "the understanding of society for which a liberal arts university is above all responsible."