Vietnam
SIR, I regret to say that Mr. Mervyn Jones in his letter of May 7 is completely wrong in his concep- tion of American students. Besides the fact that I find his comparisons of the Bastille and the Christian crusades with the number of US students not pro- testing a bit ludicrous, it remains that there were well over 25,000,000 full-time day students in higher education in the United States in 1960. This figure in- cludes secondary educatiop and above. it does not include night students or part-time students and it is five years old, so needless to say, the figure is much higher today.
Mr. Jones also gives the protesting students a bit more credit than they actually deserve. Granted there are a fairly large number of serious protesters among this minority of American students. A greater per- centage are marching strictly for the fun of it. I talked to several university-level students who were march- ing in protest of the suppOsed loss of civil liberties by someone or other and three out of five of the students 1 interviewed could not define the actual pur- pose of this march. They were simply taking part in the march for the group activity. They didn't deny this and I can remember not so long ago when I would have done the same thing. Perhaps many students begin their protests with serious intent. but how many of us can remember our days as students and the causes we believed in so passionately for a few hours or a few days at most?
Quoodle is completely right when he refers to these students as a minority and, as a matter of fact, they are more of a minority than even he realises. Yale sent forth 200 marchers out of a school population of 8.000 and of these 200 a considerably smaller figure were actually serious protesters. This is a minority in anyone's language.
JOHN L. ROUSE (of Wallingford, Connecticut, USA) 42 Kirkhill Terrace, Brosburn, West Lothian.
Scotland
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