A NEW HAVEN--FOR YOUNG ELI

There are those who mourned, when Harvard inaugurated the House plan some years ago, at the fact that unappreciative Freshmen would hence forth occupy the hallowed balls in the Yard. Some alumni dashed a tear from their eye as they realized that Seniors would have to spend their last year in college in some remote exile down by the river instead of within the whispering walls of Weld or Stoughton. It was sad at the time, perhaps, but no one really suffered by the new arrangement. Seniors discovered that the Eliot House grill could make up for a lot of inspirational whispering, and the Freshman seldom realized there had been a change.

None of this would be of interest at present were it not that Yale University, now plowing bravely into fields already braved by Harvard, is running into difficulties similar to those still plaguing University Hall. A reliable report from New Haven announces a proposal to group all Eli Freshmen on the Old Campus next year. This move would oust about 350 upperclassmen, chiefly Sophomores, from their mellow quarters and replace them with some 500 Yearlings. This is a natural step in the development of the Yale College plan, patterned after the Harvard Houses. And it raises the same question there which has been raised more than once here--namely, what is to become of several hundred upperclassmen for whom there are no regular accommodations available?

Yale is only wondering; Harvard knows. They plead frantically; they write doleful letters; they try their "pull" on Housemasters and Admissions Committees. But the big majority of them are simply cast aside as college orphans, on the basis of the old saying that one can't fill bottles already full. Again it is a sad story, but youth must be served, on the Old Campus even as in the Yard.

Those 350 Yale men have Harvard's sympathy. There are at least that many men here who know exactly what it is to be in such a predicament. In a very short time there will be a new batch of innocents to learn that the supply does not even approach the demand for room in the Houses. They too will be watching New Haven as they trudge around looking hopefully for their new haven.