WOULD SHUT IT DOWN

To the Editors of The CRIMSON:

If I were a trustee at Harvard or Columbia I think I would agree with the student strikers and vote to "shut the place down."

It would solve a lot of problems such as: (a) relieve trustees of a lot of uncompensated and unappreciated duties; (b) give the campus grass a chance to grow; and (c) let students rediscover the world of work.

Maybe "work" is the missing word. Back in prepermissive days, I was a Freshman Dean at Harvard. Rules were simpler then: if a student failed, he was expelled. If expelled, he was readmitted only after three or more months of hard (but compensated) labor, such as digging ditches for the Boston Edison Company, or the Boston Elevated Railway Company.

It was amazing how, many students "came back," and how firmly they were convinced that, after all, there was something to be said for the value of a college education. William I. Nichols '26