AND AGAIN--FOOD

Members of the University are being given one more opportunity to signify their desire for a dining hall. Neither the Union club-tables arrangement nor the proposal that groups definitely express their inclination for a Commons has met with success, and consequently there has been no progress. Now, however, a petition, fully sanctioned and authorized by President Lowell, will be circulated in an attempt to secure signatures of five hundred men who will pledge themselves to eat in such an establishment for one half year. If this number of men signs the University promises a hall to be opened next September.

There are two probable reasons for the failure of the Union plan: those eating there feel no necessity to bind themselves to certain tables, since under present conditions they are at liberty to sit where and with whom they choose and consequently by this time of the year, the same groups have formed communal habits which have proved satisfactory; secondly, there is a decided hesitancy about spontaneously offering to become a part of a system as unfamiliar as the University dining hall is to the present undergraduate.

A petition, officially sponsored and actively directed, is another matter. There is a greater possibility that the plan may be fulfilled. But if this is a failure and the required amount of signers is not reached, there can be but one conclusion--the students at present do not favor the proposition. Statistics are a worthy barometer and in this case they are either the be-all or the end-all, at least temporarily, of a university run dining hall.