LITERACY ON THE RIGHT

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

Where, these days, are undergraduates writing non-fiction? queries Curtis Heasler in Wednesday's CRIMSON. Mr. Heasler postulates a "higher illiteracy" caused by the infection of careerism to explain the dearth of undergraduate writing.

The successful three-year history of The Harvard Conservative belies your reviewer's thesis. In a few days the third issue of this academic year will be distributed. Like its predecessors, it emphasizes student writing. The Conservative has experienced no shortage of copy; this year's fourth issue, which will not be published for six weeks, is already completely full. The problem, suggested but then dismissed in the review, is indeed a financial, and especially advertising famine.

The situation of The Harvard Conservative may not be completely representative. For articles the Conservative can draw on a pool of well-read and articulate writers whose counterparts in other campus opinion bloc may well have been eradicated by "higher illiteracy" or vitiated by lower by lower illiteracy. Local advertisers are reluctant to utilize an avowedly conservative publication even though it reaches every undergraduate room. However atypical it may be The Harvard Conservative does supply one example of a successful student writes quarterly. William C. Wooldridge