THE BURSAR, THE JANITORS, AND THE SCOUTS.

TO THE EDITORS OF THE CRIMSON:-

I WISH to give two reasons why the attempt to force us to employ the janitors as scouts seems to me wholly unjustifiable. One would think that the reasons would be apparent to any honest and fair-minded man. In the first place, this move of the Bursar's is nothing more than an attempt, which might almost be called underhanded, to get from the students more money to pay the current college expenses than is given by the regular stated college fees. It is apparent enough that the janitors, regular college employees, are underpaid with the understanding that they shall make up their salaries out of the students. If proof were needed the janitors state this themselves, and to our faces make it the ground for impudently demanding that we shall turn off our old and trusted scouts, and employ themselves. Thus, besides paying, in addition to the stated fees, the salaries of regular college employees by an ingenious and hidden device, we are subjected to the safe impudence of men ostensibly our servants, yet in no way responsible to us.

The second reason is one which would be expected to be convincing enough to any gentleman in the Faculty, and, indeed, to any man of a balanced and logical mind. If the Bursar has a right to say who shall black our boots, he has a right to say who shall put down our carpets, who mend our furniture, who cut our trousers, and who shave us. In spite of our logical, philosophical, and metaphysical training, I have not yet seen a man good enough at drawing distinctions to distinguish two different principles in these several cases. Thus, while every man in college denies the right of the Bursar to interfere in a matter which is not in the least his own, and which is as much the private concern of individuals, as whom they get to cut their hair, it is not unreasonable to ask that the Faculty, and especially the gentlemen on whose precepts we base our position, should take the matter in hand.

Where two questions of honesty, justice, and right are concerned, it is not the time to speak of the advisability of turning off men who honestly have done their duties as scouts, in some cases, for twenty-five years; or of forcing us to discharge trusted servants whom we have employed for three years, and to subject ourselves to what is probably to be irresponsible impudence, and necessarily irresponsible negligence.

We ask that the Faculty heed the general sentiment of the College.

X.[Our correspondent is mistaken in supposing that the Faculty have anything to do with the janitors; the Corporation and the Bursar are alone responsible in this case. - Editors of Crimson.]