STUDENT, THIRD CLASS

The editorial from the Boston Traveler quoted in an adjoining column voices an attitude in regard to the practice of student rioting which is almost inevitably the common one among the public at large. The theory that students are in some way outside the laws recognized by the rest of the population has a proper justification in the days when a thousand and one customs duties made the broadening influence of travel a difficult business for the poor but earnest student.

Today however the freedom of the port seems to have been extended to include a freedom of action in transit which involves great inconvenience and annoyance to other travellers. Irritating as it must have been to the sixteenth century tourist to see the Heidelberg boys of the day going through the custom house Scot free, this feeling is hardly to be classed with the reaction of the honest Cambridge citizen returning from the great city showered in Stygian darkness with ground glass.

Aside from the utter disregard for the rights of other individuals involved in the practice of demolishing subway rolling stock, such conduct hardly reflects credit upon the rioters themselves or upon the institution which in the popular mind they represent. The Boston Traveler is to be congratulated on recognizing the fact that "this sort of Siwash stuff" is not in fact representative of Harvard; others, less discriminating are not likely to be so generous if the subway customs of the last two years become a tradition.

Last Wednesday's regrettable incident may be excused, as the Traveler so magnanimously puts it, "as an indication that there have crept into Harvard youngsters still moist behind the ears," but such excuses do not last in the face of recurrences. The usages of paternalism have never been in much favor at Harvard, but if ever paternalistic measures are justified it is in dealing with those not as yet dry behind the ears. To sum the whole matter up in one brutally frank sentence, if younger persons have not as yet learned to dry themselves behind the ears, it is high time that some responsible person performed this office for them.