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To the Editors of the Crimson.

An important aspect of the class election question seems thus far to have gone unnoticed. It has been proposed to forbid re-elections until the Senior year, in order that the final officers may be chosen on the basis of previously proved executive ability. To this it has been objected that the rule will often result in forcing the retirement, for a year or two, of the most capable officers. This point is good, but it goes only half way. Executive ability has in both cases been treated as a fixed quality in the candidates under consideration. In reality the power to be of service to a class can only be acquired in its fullest extent through long experience in service. To forbid re-election is not only to make it possible that able men may be displaced; it is to make it impossible that the highest efficiency shall be developed.

The rules which I should suggest are in accord, for the most part, with those proposed the other day. At each election after the Freshman year at least two nominations should be made for each office. These should be made by a committee elected by the class. The selection of this committee by the president is inadvisable since it would make it possible for him to control the nominations, the value of the remedial measure would be least when on account of an undesirable president it was most needed. Additional nominations should be permitted if signed by a sufficient number of men from the class. Elections should be by Australian ballot or by a system equally impassive. They should not follow too closely a football game or any event which tends to bring too prominently to notice men who are in other ways not the best candidates. What may appear disadvantageous in the slight complexity of these rules would be offset by the sanction which a recognized method of procedure would give to the removal of officers who seemed inefficient.

Whether or not these rules are suitable, it is desirable that some action on the question should be taken by the present Freshman class. If their choice of officers at the outset is fortunate, rules like those above will not affect them; otherwise they will be of value to them as well as to future classes.

All this discussion may seem rather unnecessary to those who have had no experience with class officers, and the basis of it may seem less real than imagined. To some of us, however, the chance has been given to see a concrete example of class administration which has pointed the way to an ideal. We know that a class officer can be the representative of the class as a body, while he also comes more and more to be the friend of each individual man. We have come to feel that a class should set this standard for its officers. Therefore, while it is much to be desired that a way should be found to replace such men as give no promise, it seems all important that no hasty and prohibitive scheme should be allowed to prevent the moulding in each class of officers of the highest worth. JAMES A. FIELD.