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To the Editors of the CRIMSON:
In response to the invitation made in the CRIMSON of March 3, for communications on the subject of hostility to Harvard, I submit my opinion merely because I am acquainted with middle western sentiment, having thrived under it during pre-college days. The last suggestion in the editorial appearing in the afore-mentioned CRIMSON that "the Harvard social system is so designed that it repeatedly occasions detrimental resentment among a great many undergraduates," is perhaps the solution of the enigma. The greater part of the middle-west considers Harvard "snobbish and sissy-like", and I did too until after a year's residence here. This hostility is the result of ignorance--ignorance of true conditions. And it is because the representatives of the College are also members and representatives of that secret society which lives in Boston and the suburbs and exists solely upon tradition.
Why has resentment arisen among westerners? The answer seems to be because Harvard has been made unattractive to them. For westerners are absolutely intolerant of Boston's traditional "mental luxury of conservatism" which is more tritely expressed by the word "snobbishness", and the snobbish element must be removed before we can stifle this detrimental hostility. The undergraduate body is not snobbish. Then, let us be sure that we choose representatives of the students who are true representatives! ROBERT S. KELLER '23. March 3, 1921.
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