A MODEST PROPOSAL

Acting upon the gentlest hints from undergraduates, and in full accord with the spirit of the House Plan, the tutors in Eliot House have doubtless decided by this time to give over the daily tutors table. To date, however, they have shown a commendable horror of backslapping and mere vulgar companionability, and a tendency to Fabian tactics in making their reform. Obviously haste would be most undesirable when dealing with so old a tradition as the tutorial table of Eliot House. There is a widespread feeling among the students, however, that it would be very nice if by Thanksgiving Dinner, there were one or two members of the faculty with whom they might quietly pass the time of day, snap caps, and share their giblet gravy.

This seems scarcely possible with the tutorial coyness at its present maidenly height. Like the shy wild creatures of the woods, perhaps only the extreme cold of the winter will induce them to eat at the tables where food is so kindly profferred. "In the trenchers by Christmas" would then be the motto for their conversion. But the undergraduate members of the House can hasten the process of domestication by always acting kindly, and never doing anything that might startle a tutor. Occasional tenders of friendship from the students, such as cocktails, or a snifter or two of pre-war Scotch, would also certainly help to overcome the reluctance of the dons. If only all of them would consider the few of their number who do dine with college men, and the many happy times so spent, perhaps all of them would find the way to that broader and richer life which every tutor longs for. That would be a happy day indeed for the resident staff of the House, for they would at last be actually giving something in return for their free room and board, the undeserved enjoyment of which has long troubled their tender consciences.