It is extremely unfortunate that gross misrepresentation of the aims and methods of the proposed College Conferences has made it necessary to abandon them altogether. Ease and effectiveness in the government of the College are chiefly to be expected along the line of better understanding between the Faculty and the students; for in the case of two such bodies it is not familiarity, but unfamiliarity, which breeds contempt. The progress of the past few years has shown how true this is, and it has been very gratifying to notice the constantly improving relations between professors and students. The College Conferences would have contributed much to further advance in this direction. It would, however, be out of the question to start them now. The mere denial of the false statements made about them would not be sufficient to overcome the prejudice which those statements against them must arouse.
The offensive part of the whole affair is that the mischief done should be the work of a Harvard student. The Boston papers can not be blamed for publishing in good faith what was sent them as correct news; but the man who with all the sources of reliable information at his hand, neglected these and so sacrificed the interests of the College to his own, deserves the censure of the entire University.
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