In soliciting contributions from the undergraduates on Harvard's relations with the West, and on the advantages and disadvantages that a western man finds here, the CRIMSON is aiming at some practical solution of the recognized difficulty--or, as has been suggested, recognized misunderstanding -- against which the western man must contend. Our contributor this morning offers some instructive suggestions, which may well be added to those already advanced by and through the CRIMSON. No university can hope to appeal purely by academic reputation to the preparatory schools that are ignorant of the real conditions of its undergraduate life. That, of course, must play a large part; but life at Harvard means more to us than the mere study, for which primarily we have come to Cambridge. It means four years of active competition with men of our own age and tastes; competition in any one of a hundred branches of endeavor; competition that is selfish in part, but in the end binds us the more closely to the men with whom we must compete. It means, further, four years of life in a world of our own, bringing pleasures, disappointments, victories and defeats.

These are a few of the phases of a course at Harvard that are unknown to western schoolboys, who in their ignorance have become prejudiced; and this very prejudice has been strengthened by the testimony of their few Harvard friends, who, laboring under the same ignorance, were unable to comprehend in time the complexity of the life they found in Cambridge. For the relieving of such a condition Faculty and undergraduates are alike responsible.