WALD ON VENDORS

To the Editors of The Crimson:

I find the persons selling their wares on the street in Forbes Plaza at Holyoke Center one of the most colorful and humanizing elements in what is otherwise the increasingly arid scene of Harvard Square. Large numbers of students and other passersby seem to enjoy it, too, and to take advantage of the opportunities it offers to buy hand-made things, bargain books, records and exotic things that backpackers have just brought in from Guatemala, Peru, Nepal and Ethiopia.

I think that Harvard should be happy to issue permits to let this, our only street market, go on, I believe that the Carpenter Center plans to put on an exhibit called "Art of the Market Place" later this spring. It would be strange to do that while suppressing our own indigenous market place. Just the contrary of interfering with the Bicentennial, this should help fulfill it.

I trust that permits will be re-issued at once. George Wald   Higgins Professor of Biology