INTER-HOUSE EATING

Though more than a month ago the officials at Lehman Hall announced that the task of forming new rules concerning inter-House dining was entirely in the hands of the House Masters, and though a change is evidently desired by students, no action has been taken on the matter. The most practical plan for liberalization of the rules must allow House members to dine as the guests of friends living in other Houses, and at the same time remove the financial burden which new checks the hospitality of too many students. There must be certain restrictions, a limitation, consonant with the spirit of the House Plan, which will prevent one from absenting himself from his own House too often, and which will prevent any particular House from becoming a meal-time Mecca because of its convenient location or other attractions.

The regulations at present are a petty and annoying hinderance to the formation and continuance of friendships which men make with students resident in other Houses. The contacts made in the classroom and in extra-curricular activities most easily ripen into friendship over the iced-tea and the Boston baked beans. The House Plan recognizes that this is true, and throws men together for their meals that they may learn to know one another. The system now in operation, however, in effect limits the influence to the individual Houses, and may, as the House Plan succeeds, result in severing the ties of acquaintance which link the seven Houses, and so split the unity of Harvard College. This is the more true because the trend is away from all activities other than those which the House fosters. Of course, such a result is contrary to the desires of those who created and instituted the House Plan.

Because the present method of placing the burden of the cost on the host is disliked by the House members, and because it may in some degree be harmful to the College, the CRIMSON has advocated that new rulings be adopted. The most attractive plan proposed would allow the guest to sign for his own meals and count them on his own quota. At the same time he would not be permitted to eat more than three meals each week in a House other than his own, and he might be required to pay a small surcharge to cover the increased cost of book-keeping on guest meals. Of course every guest would be required to have a host who lives in the House where the meals are eaten. The decision on this question is in the hands of the House Masters, and they should speedily take whatever action seems most fit, to settle the issue once for all.