FREE-FOR-ALL

The report of a recent student conference at Hartsdale, New York, which dealt mainly with the financial aspects and responsibilities of the colleges, would furnish tests for several young dissertations. One of the two chief topics of the report is the problem of restrictions on freedom of learning, caused by the influence of rich and reactionary alumni whose financial aid is necessary.

The conference considered, incidentally, the part that student opinion can play in any reforms that are to come. The conclusion was reached that undergraduate thought needs only to be unleashed in order to bring about desired reforms, but that at present most of the students are thoughtless, and the inspired ones fear to say what they believe. As a solution, it was urged that every college publication should have a department in which the ideas of any group or individual could be expressed freely, without deference to any authority, faculty or otherwise.

To members of the University, this suggestion seems superfiuous. The days of administrative censorship at Harvard passed long ago. The CRIMSON, for example, feels at liberty to print whatever views it may choose; and its columns are open, within reason, to contributions from anyone who has an opinion to express, regardless of its sentiments. If, as the delegates to the conference believed, the moneyed interests are repressing the University, the University members seem either strangely apathetic, or universally unaware of the fact.