Fireside Chat

Education by the fireside or over a glass of sherry always was the idea behind the House Plan. But that free and easy give and take between professor and student has, like all good ideas, often fallen into disuse. Like all good ideas, though, it has a way of persisting and coming to life every so often.

Such a rebirth has brought the Concentration Dinners to life in some of the Houses in recent years. For four years Leverett House has been gathering one or another group of its twenty-three fields of concentration together once a week for sherry, dinner, and a bull-session with some outstanding men in the field. The turn out has always been good enough to warrant four or five meetings of each field a term.

Kirkland House, not being satisfied with Concentration Dinners, holds deconcentration dinners as well. Classics majors get to talk about Social Relations or Chemistry concentrators may discuss world problems with someone from the Government Department. Other Houses have tried Concentration Dinners with less success. But not all the Houses have given the idea of informal education a chance.

The Student Council Committee on Education is trying to figure out why Concentration Dinners sometimes appeal and other times fizzle. Having proved a success in a few Houses they should be encouraged as one of the best ways to bring back the spirit that moved Edward S. Harkness to build the Houses along the River.