The same clear sense characterizes the statement of President Conant, of Harvard, about the failure to renew the three-year appointments of two young economics instructors as has been manifested in his other public statements. It was this which enabled him to cut through the sophistries of the Nazi demands on Harvard and; in the case of governor La Follette's request to him to pass on the Glenn Frank case, to expose the essence of the whole problem in a few sentences. Critics of Harvard contend that the two instructors were "dropped" because they had expressed political and economic views of which the authorities disapprove. Dr. Conant replied that in matters of promotions a man's political or economic views should not count either for or against him.

This attitude is, of course, the correct position to take. The work of the men in question, Dr. Conant said, was carefully considered by those in the university in a position to known, with the result that they reported that "there are others among their contemporaries of greater potentialities." Hence their three-year contracts were not renewed. Instead they were offered contracts for two years, a fact which seems in itself enough to silence any criticism that they were being "dropped" for their political views. Both, it happens, have been active in radical circles. But so have many other young Harvard instructors whose connection with the university has not for this reason been weakened.

It was characteristic of Dr. Conant to point out that the mere fact that a man's opinions may be considered unorthodox was no reason why he should be accorded unusually favorable treatment. "It academic decisions are to be influenced by the fear of their being misinterpreted as interference with academic freedom," he said, "then academic freedom itself to my mind, disappears."

Any other point of view would have been unthinkable for a man of Dr. Conant's well known liberal views. The old saying has been applied to him that he is tolerant of everything except intolerance. No one has more vigorously fought for academic freedom and resisted efforts to curb free speech or civil libertics. Such a man, obviously, would not sanction the discharge of instructors from the university staff simply because some of their public statements had aroused criticism. It is well that, in the case in point, he has used the occasion more to drive home clemental truths which in these "explosive times" are in danger of being forgotten. N. Y. Herald-Tribune