justify Harvard's today circulation of permits for vendors in Forbes Plaza in front of Holyoke Center.

The idea that six vendors may disturb the proceedings of Cambridge's Bicentennial information headquarters works against the whole principle of having the celebration.

If anything, the Bicentennial should be a living celebration, exemplified by colorful crowded marketplaces, not cold stone monuments and sterile building tours.

The removal also seems premature considering that the Bicentennial still has barely got off the ground.

The University should go back to the policy it had last summer, which posed no restrictions on the number of vendors.

It should restore in these vendors their chance to earn a livelihood in a way that is bothersome only to store merchants and is a pleasant change from the commercialized stores that remain in the Square.