OPEN BRIBERY

The rats are gnawing at the cellar of University Hall. The nerve of the tutoring agent who brazenly tried to bribe a Dean's secretary is hard to beat. But he rightly guessed that the University would not take strong steps against him, and it is labor-saving to fix the boss of course attendance instead of all her assistants.

Amazement at the cram parlor's effrontery is only approached by wonder that the University has not cracked down on this particular crook and his colleagues. Here is simply another example of an implied disapproval of tutoring as it now exists, which Harvard is unwilling to bring into the open. Even now the Records Office makes it hard for the schools to get the lists on which they depend. So the University is opposing in practice what it backs in theory--the freedom of the student to make his choice between good and evil and every other set of alternatives. Why not throw the course records wide open to the tutors and let them with much less effort on their part efficiently bombard the student with advertising? After all, it is difficult now, where virtuous monitors are prevalent, to make a "liberal" choice between a diploma from Harvard and a sheepskin from Wolff.

The present virulence of the tutoring racket increases its abuses beyond mere causes for annoyance. They should be vigorously uncovered and prosecuted. As long as Harvard tolerates these insultingly obvious violations of its rules the dignity of its degree suffers.