To the Editor of the CRIMSON:

(The Crimson invites all men in the University to submit signed communications of timely interest. It assumes no responsibility, however, for sentiments expressed under this head and reserves the right to exclude any whose publication would be palpably inappropriate.)

The matter to which I wish to call attention has in previous years been discussed and rediscussed. It is, however, of such vital interest to a large number of Harvard men that a few remarks bearing upon it will not be out of place at this time, but on the contrary, should be quite opportune. The subject referred to is the Christmas recess, which appears to a large number of members of the University to be at present too short.

It may be that less than ten years ago. Harvard was essentially a New England institution. This, however, is not true today. For within the last two years, more than one University officer has made a trip to the West and South with the sole object of increasing the enrollment at Harvard from those sections of the country. Harvard is no longer solely a New England university, but a national university. It is becoming more so each year as the efforts of faculty alumni, and present undergraduates to bring men from all parts of the country to Harvard are bearing fruit. As a national institution of learning. Harvard should see that those of its regulations drawn up while it was a college of the New England states only should be modified to fit its new position as one of the greatest universities of the whole nation. One of these regulations is that prescribing the length of the Christmas recess. The recess should be lengthened.

All of the other great universities of the United States, notably Yale and Princeton, grant their members considerably longer recesses than does Harvard. Is it not an injustice to its Southern and Western members to preserve the present recess of only eleven days!

Extra time granted, as last year, to students living at certain distances from Cambridge, at the beginning of the recess, does not essentially help the situation. It is especially at the end of the recess that its crataped nature is very unpleasantly felt. New England, New York, and even Washington (D, C.) students may remain at home until late on January second. Southerners and many Westerners, on the contrary, must leave for college before New Year's or at best, early New Year's morning. Two years age the recess was extended to include January fourth, to the gratification of the entire student body, but especially of Westerners and Southernerss. I cannot be brought to believe that those two additional days wrought any harm at all to the conducting of courses, or injured in the least the treasured body of our Harvard traditions. On the other hand, those two additional days mount much to many a Harvard student, and were heartily appreciated. Let the recess then be lengthened, and let the addition, at time come at the end of the recess.

The plea for an extension of the Christmas recess is not purely personal it represents the opinion and feelings of many a Harvard man. It is to be hoped that the University Administration will not ignore it. ANORIE L. CONX '22   October 30, 1981.