VERITAS AT ELIOT

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

There are certain myths regularly circulated among the Harvard community which those of us who have been here for any length of time soon come to recognize as the apocryphal legends they are. It is, however, unfortunate that the traditional and unfounded myth about Eliot House should appear in print at just the time when freshmen, most of whom have not yet had enough experience with the Houses to judge their qualities, are trying to make a decision they will have to live with for the next three years. It is particularly unfortunate that such a myth should appear under the guise of data.

The revival of such untruths and the publicity accorded them by the CRIMSON is not only unfair to the freshmen, but is also an insult to the members of Eliot House. Especially to those of us who have helped to make up the character of this House for the past three years and have felt some pride in doing so, the application of such adjectives as "snobbish," and "aristocratic" is personally offensive.

Dr. Brown's poll reported in the CRIMSON yesterday, based as it is upon an inconclusive number of participants, appears to have violated one of the more basic principles of statistical methodology. He himself has admitted that "the poll provides little information as to the real "character" of the Houses." By allowing the results of such a poll to be made public, he has done a disservice to his own field of Social Relations. But what is worse, and what we cannot allow to go unnoticed, is the fact that he has also done a disservice to the guiding principle of this University: Veritas. Waiter Kaiser '54   Philip Kuhn '54   Paul D. Sheats '54   Daniel Steiner '54