SATURDAY'S CHILDREN

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

The changes in rules for attendance of Saturday classes proposed by Professor Kemble have come as a surprise, I think, to more than one student.

As a result of past experience the relations of student and teacher at Harvard have come to be governed by a series of unwritten laws similar in a way to the British Constitution, a flexible modus vivendi capable of reinterpretation and development to fit new needs, as in the case of Parietal Rule changes last year. These changes in the attendance system now under consideration seem to me to violate the well-established and effective convention that student attendance at lectures, etc., is a purely voluntary and individual matter. From my own contacts with the Harvard administration I have received the impression that the last thing its members desire is to waste valuable time acting as a group of petty disciplinary despots. Although Professor Kemble no doubt feels that he is only doing his duty by his students, I believe that this change if passed will place an entirely unnecessary burden on both faculty and students.

I hope that the CRIMSON, as one of the leading organs of student opinion, will take the lead in urging that these measures, because of their inherent disadvantages, be withdrawn. Franklin D. Thompson, Jr. '55