In Re Sin

To the Editor of the CRIMSON:

It is rumored that witless criticism has been drifting about in regard to the proposed new chapel to be erected on the site of Appleton. Hypocrites, heathens, and one-cylinder Shaws are reported to be auctioning God for a gymnasium. Puny little babbling voices from this desert of sin are deploring the thought of tranquil worship in cool marble halls.

But who are these lily-livered saints who, from their monasteries, look out on the Harvard yard to find den of vice and sin sheltered beneath the ancient elms? They throw up their arms in despair and say we will build a chapel large enough to fill the yard, one which will leave them no room for their vice, one which they will be forced to attend one which will bring them under the guiding hand of God.

Are men of vice reformed by the site of beautiful columns, and is Harvard such a den of iniquity that it requires a new chapel to pull it out of the mire? Students may at times seem obstreperous and unruly but beyond that "Heniso't qui mal y pense!"

Who are the men, and what is it that makes them fall into loose ways? Generally they are men whose physique is too poor to give them a chance of athletic squads, men who have been cut because there is no longer any room for them. And having no adequate symposium or swimming pool in which to exercise themselves they follow the other paths open to them. Now which will do these men the most good a chapel in which they can sit in marbled coolness thinking of the good times they are missing or a gymnasium in which they can find good wholesome exercise strengthening their bodies and fitting themselves for the battle of life? And the boys in France, sleeping their last--would they be more pleased to have an aspiring finger pointing toward heaven in memory of their noble exploits, or to know that, inspired by those exploits, men were being strengthened in body and health and fitted for the work of establishing democracy on earth?

And as for the aesthetic and artistic side of the question it is to be hoped that even New England architects can adorn a gymnasium with spacious porticos and massive columns such that the holy ones might risk a glance. Alexis de Tarnowsky 4 E.S.