LEVIN OBJECTS . . .

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

I am sorry that I must note a few corrections to your account of my recent meeting with graduate students in Comparative Literature (March 18). Nothing so tempestuous occurred as what your article has attempted to stir up, and I believe that most of those present would agree with me that it was "a very constructive occasion." Since it was to be a kind of family occasion, involving some frank shop-talk and possible personalities, your reporter was asked to leave. I now regret that we did not ask him to stay, because I feel sure that first-hand observation would have given him a more harmonious picture.

Perhaps it should be noted that we do not have 45 students, of whom over half were present; we have 50, of whom less than half were present. Much of your article outlines certain "demands," which--you ambiguously state--they "entered the meeting prepared to make." I am glad to say that they were much too friendly and fair-mined to adopt such a tone; some, but by no means all, of the matters you report were brought up in the course of a full and free discussion. The person who supplied you with this material, Miss Ellen Cantarow, spoke for herself alone, and left the meeting early. I did not appoint three committees; I simply agreed to meet further with any committee of the students' choosing.

In a graduate program of some rigor and complexity, there are bound to be occasional problems of adjustment and intercommunication. I am not worried about our capacity for working them out. What worries me--when I see, on the same front page of the CRIMSON, four articles about "demands" in other departments--is the premise behind them all: that somehow students and professors are natural enemies, instead of being mutually dedicated collaborators. It is no mere cliché that the President voices at Commencement, when he tells the seniors that they are being admitted "to the fellowship of educated men." Civilization itself depends upon this basic fellowship. Any attempt to disrupt it is not merely immature and irresponsible; it is totally uncivilized. Harry Levin   Chairman   Department of Comparative Literature