To the Editors of the Crimson:

Permit me to reply to some of the opinions of the writer of the second latter in today's CRIMSON. This writer says: "I can see no reason why another tree should not be chosen, if the crowd which attends the exercises is to be as large as in past years." To this I reply that there is one most excellent reason for not choosing another tree, a reason, namely, of sentiment, purely and nobly of sentiment.

But the same gentleman says: "With the sentiment," the tree has been used so many years, "I have no sympathy."

I reply to the gentleman that I thank heaven I have no sympathy with his sentiments, and that I hope and believe few Harvard men have. If he and those of his opinion be so void of imagination, so dried at heart, and so lean of chivalry as not to feel the stir of a single inspiration from the past at entering that contest which has been shared in by so many Harvard generations-pray let them sit upon the benches and be silent. But to be brief:

Since the reasons for holding the ex-exercises at the tree are purely of sentiment and association, to change the tree would be to render the exercises unreasonable and uncalled for. The exercises themselves should not be given up because they are "too rough," for they certainly are not too rough for those who enter them, since they enter voluntarily, not too rough for those who do not enter, because they don't, and not too rough for the spectators, as their enormous attendance proves.

At any rate it will not be time for us to abolish the tree exercises for such reasons until we abolish football.

To remedy the present inconveniences of crowding at the tree, the number of tickets should be more limited and the number of exits increased.

PERCY MACKAYE '97.January 7, 1897.