NO THIRD PERSON

The present House parietal regulations on women guests are as outmoded and disjointed as a Model T Ford. Liberal application by some merciful tutors and masters has alleviated the situation slightly, but until the University rules are drastically revised, upperclassmen will be subjected to a mass of inconvenient and unnecessary red tape.

A member of one of the Houses has a lot more freedom in the matter than Peter Prep, but the schoolboy cannot be expelled for having his mother in his room unattended, and this is possible at Harvard, absurd though it seems. The restrictions are insurance against neither the corruption of the students' morals nor the besmirching of the University's reputation, and serve only as a nuisance.

It has been said that the advance permissions rigama role is designed to prevent "casualt droppings-in." What's the matter with casual droppings-in? And as for the at-least-three-persons requirement, a disgruntled student remarked at the time of a parietal furore in 1936: "Most of the suites have more than one room, and you will find that two determined couples are just as effective as one."

Yale, Princeton, Dartmouth, and Amherst, to name a few, require neither signing nor chaperones. It was only after the 1936 tempest that Crimson undergraduates were able to remove a ruling that at least two women had to be present in a room. Not much better is the current "third person," who usually turns out to be a fifth wheel. The system of granting permissions is not only superfluous, but a sham as well, as there can never be any refusal of the request unless it is made for later than 7 o'clock. The time has come to follow the lead of other colleges and clear away the rest of the refuse.