Radcliffe Speaks on Lamont

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

Before too much hard feeling is aroused over the issue of Lamont Library in particular and the University's and College's policy of "equal but separate" facilities, it might be wise to review the aims of the institutions and certain inescapable facts.

The fundamental question is evidently one of policy--the extent of co-education. The Radcliffe and Harvard authorities have made up their minds on this point, and their convictions are beyond the influence of editorials. They believe it should be limited, and though we may quarrel with this view we cannot at this time quarrel fruitfully.

The immediate issue concerning the library will be solved equitably according to the plan of the institutions. The Radcliffe library will have every book that Lamont has, in the proper proportion of course, and that, it is hoped, by the beginning of next term. The ordinary needs of the undergraduates will thus be satisfactorily provided for. Further, Widener will be open to Harvard and Radcliffe undergraduates on exactly the same basis, for special research. If the fundamental approach of the authorities is accepted, as for the time it must be, this is a perfectly equitable arrangement.

A few injustices remain, however, but they are all possible to remedy. First the poetry room has been made inaccessible to all women. This is a blow not only to Radcliffe undergraduates but to the graduate students and to women visitors, who, for example, might want to hear the records of poets reciting. Here there are no equal but separate facilities provided, and nothing in the material warrants this limitation to Harvard undergraduates. Second, though the Radcliffe library may be stocked will all the requisite books this fact does not insure that the girls are adequately supplied, because our girlish system allows a few unscrupulous, students to foul up this lifeline of education. The honor system as applied to the library, invariably breaks down when the pressure is on. Radcliffe would have fewer library complaints if it introduced a rational system to central its books instead of an emotional one. Nancy Rabi, Radcliffe '50.