To the Editor:
The Crimson news story of November 1, headed "Council Beaten to Draw on Parietal Rules by Masters," and stating that the Council Report on parietal Rules has been left "dead," was based on a complete misapprehension of what the Council Report on Parietal Rules says and why it was written.
Let me try to explain the facts:
1. The Council Report on Parietal Rules was not in the nature of an investigation or an attack. It was prepared, at the request of the College, in order to give a considered opinion on whether or not the present Parietal Rules should be changed. The possibility of instituting more severe rules came up because of a number of recent parietal offenses.
The significant part of the report, then, was the opinion it expressed that present Parietal Rules, if properly enforced, are adequate.
The Report went on to suggest that better enforcement of the Rules would obtain if the Houses, wherever possible, and uniform Rules as to times and methods of checking in and out. In my letter to Dean Hanford, which accompanied to copy of the Report, I noted that most Houses have already taken steps to enforce the Rules properly.
How the Council has been "beaten to the draw" by anyone--or why the matter has any affinity to a race--is something beyond me.
The Report was purposely indefinite as to means of enforcing the Parietal Rules, as the Council agrees completely with Dr. Finley of Eliot House that the House Masters and House Committees should run their own Houses, so far as consistent with general University rules. A talk with Dr. Finely today revealed that he was both misquoted and misinterpreted in yesterday's Crimson story, and that he had not yet read the Council Report at the time he saw the Crimson reporter.
I am sure that the printing of the story on Parietal Rules as it stood was a slip; and that the Crimson will be glad to correct an article which was utterly misleading and twisted. Levin R. Campbell III.
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