The Women's Room

To the Editors of The Crimson

I am returning home afer visiting our son who is a freshman at Harvard. While visiting his dorm I had occasion to use the women's rest room and was appalled by the squalid, if not filthy, condition of the facilities. The sinks were filled with hair and dried up toothpaste--there were empty plastic shampoo bottles etc, strewn on the floor. The showers seemed lined with scum. Were I a woman student at Harvard, I could not endure the daily assault on my sensibilities.

Interestingly, I was staying at the Radcliffe Alumnae House which is simply delightful. The rooms, while not elegant, are clean, bright and furnished with little niceties at plants and fresh flowers. I wonder if any Harvard Radcliffe (?) women who uses that sloppy bathroom would put a flower in her room or preter a lunch napkin in to one of paper.

It has always been the hallmark of the well-educated, be they wealthy or not to appreciate the good, the true and the beautiful. To treat one's body with respect, because it encases our immortal soul or, if for no other reason than that it better serves our intellectual requirements if kept in in good repair should be common sense to an intelligent person. Yet I observed too many young people at Harvard who looked downright slovenly.

Perhaps the Crimson should begin a Clean-Up campaign starting with the students themselves. Or if Radcliffe is to be used in the title of the school let the Radcliffe Alumnae set a standard for women at Harvard. The feminists would better serve society if they would maintain those qualities unique to such as asceticism. Patricin G. Spencer