(Ed. Note--The Crimson does not necessarily endorse opinions expressed in printed communications. No attention will be paid to anonymous letters and only under special conditions, at the request of the writer, will names be withheld. Only letters under 400 words can be printed because of space limitations.)

To the Editor of the Crimson:

I have viewed with mixed feelings of satisfaction and guilt the preparations for the removal of the verses at the head of the central steps in Widener Library--satisfaction that they were to be replaced at last, guilt that I'had taken no part in a crusade for their removal.

For too many years they have insulted every honest student who has trudged up those steps in search of an education. For too many years the accompanying murals have offended his aesthetic sensibilities. The war memorial in the Chapel is a fitting and adequate tribute to the idealism engendered by the greatest of all social disasters. There is no need for a mature university to surround the tragic blunder with the maudlin sentimentalism of the verses and murals in Widener Library. Where was the "righteous cause," the "victory"?

I read in the Crimson that the verse is to be divided and each couplet placed under the appropriate picture. Now that they have been removed, it is folly not to take advantage of the opportunity to dispose of them quietly. If each couplet is placed under the mural which it describes, the last two lines will be on the left and read first, and the first two on the right and read last, and the total effect will be senseless. If it is felt that the couplets are needed to explain the murals, it might be better to wipe the slate clean and remove the murals also. At best they are glorified Liberty Bond posters. The great artist who painted them can no more have considered them representative of his best work than President Emeritus Lowell can be believed to have any special attachment for these verses of which he is joint author. R. S. Brainerd '38.