THE HOUSES IN OPERATION: ADAMS HOUSE

Cloistered in the Yard and the Union during their first year at Harvard, the Class of 1935 will soon be advised by University Hall that they must seek self education in the Houses, and will be furnished with a cut-and-dried, composite booklet, which, with no floor plans, will give them little information. To the end that they may not base their decisions regarding a three years' residence on the relative merits of the different ends of the spectrum on Harvard's chameleon-like cupolas, the CRIMSON will give a critical estimate of the seven units in a series of editorials; a series primarily of expository nature but in which an attempt will also be made to analyze the House Plan in its first year of operation.

Adams started off the seven-sided race for enrollment with an admitted handicap. It is a small House and the only one not entirely completed: though it is conveniently near the Yard, its surroundings are noisy and comparatively unattractive. Only one of its dormitories is modern, and the rooms incline to be dingy. Long, long before its six neighbors put in their mushroom-like appearance Adams House was there. Colonial Apthorp sheltered General Putnam; the captured Burgoyne lived in it when it were only a few of the forty coats of paint which the interior decorators removed in 1930. Westmorly Court and Randolph Hall rose when thick walls and Germanic gloom were the order of the day in architecture. To these has been added a structure for common rooms and library, whose Georgian exterior leaves the unsuspecting visitor unprepared for the array of carved and brightly painted Moorish ceilings, Bristol-board flagstones, marble columns painted on cerulean blue walls, and wrought-iron Venetian lamps, which decorate its lavishly gilded Italian interior. Russell Hall, happily but belatedly removed, has given way to a successor which calls to mind the stern lines of a frontier block-house. At least there is architectural variety.

The dining room, with a National Bank Building facade illustrative of the architects' preoccupation with Lehman Hall at the time it was built, is a handsome hall finished in dark oak. Hedged in by Westmorly and the new dormitory, it is lighted by two oval skylights which recall the dining room of the modern liner. But the kitchen which adjoins it is Adams' own; there is no food from the central refectory.

Undaunted by falling heir to this exhibit in comparative architecture, Associate Professor Baxter, with a vim and vigor worthy of his native Granite state, has set about to give one and all a good time. And he does. All is well organized; a neat little circulars advises all members about identification cards, how to make complaints about the food, how much the four guest rooms cost, and how all-pervasive are the parietal rules, which the Faculty has been meditating without result for the last six months. The swimming pool, a relic of Gold Coast days, and Adams' pride, has been modernized, and is available throughout the College year. Weekly "long table" dinners on Thursdays provide a steady stream of speakers, who have been appreciated. In contrast to the practice at certain less enterprising Houses, the Associates, a goodly list, are invited and attend. Sunday evenings a renovated Apthorp House, lined with every known book on American diplomacy, becomes the center for informal discussions of international relations. The library, a good average House library of six-thousand volumes, is especially well stocked in the fields of History and International Relations. As its booklet hints, Adams House residents are given free scope to exercise "that capacity for self-education throughout life which it is the aim of the House plan to promote".

The besetting sin of the tutors, especially the five resident tutors, is their unfortunate habit of eating together at a tutors' table. That seems to be entirely contrary to the purpose of the House Plan. There is, however, no special tutors' Common Room, but the upper Common Room is little used.

Adams teams with Leverett when attempting social enterprises on a large scale, but autumn finds it able to hold its own with post-game tea dances. In squash, it has rights to six of the Linden Street courts.

Adams has not fared so ill. Its original members were those who would not bestir themselves to move from their former quarters in Westmorly Court and Randolph Hall, and those who indicated the House as their second or third choice. The regulations of most Masters stand in the way of men who would shift their House allegiance; only a few Adams residents have made such requests; the majority are well content. And it has been well advertised: its doings have been chronicled in the press, its head has spoken in the Union--as have others, of course. After all, as a colleague remarked, "You just can't have the seventh House".