Open House

In years past, the Deans have reacted to parietal rule appeals like a war-horse to the clarion's blare. Believing it their solemn duty to protect undergraduate morality (and presumably the revered name of Harvard as well), they have rejected all pleas for parietal leniency with remarkable persistence.

Yet, the present restrictions cannot last forever. Liberalized rules are almost inevitable, if only because the Deans, in opposing them, are relying on a doctrine of protection which has ceased to be an effective argument.

This doctrine has been without relevance since women were admitted to the Houses between the hours of one and eight p.m. Once the Deans' "duty" to preserve morals admits of this, it can hardly be used to prohibit a time extension. The Deans' reasoning, based as it is on the assumed obligation to ensure "proper standards of conduct" applies only to the question of admitting girls at all, a question that was settled long ago, and the present application of such an absolute standard to a question of degree is a simple case of illogic.

Ever-increasing emphasis on the Houses has further discredited the doctrine of protection. In a series of steps which included encouraging students via their bank balance to eat, sleep, and study in the Houses, the University has sought to fashion the Houses into centers of undergraduate life. By upholding its own local blue law, the Dean's Office has unwittingly set up movie theaters, beer emporiums, and the parked automobile as vigorous contenders for this role.

So long as women are banished from the Houses after eight to o'clock, the goal of having seven social centers at Harvard has no chance of complete fulfillment. It is ironic that the upper reaches of the Administration should devote so much time and thought and where-withal to this goal, only to see it frustrated by, among others, the Dean's Office.

Besides its practical deficiencies, the Dean's doctrine is questionable in itself. It is thoroughly at odds with the sort of educational atmosphere the University maintains, one which stresses "confidence in the maturity and intelligence of the Harvard student."

Surely, everyone can recite these reasonings by rote now. Everyone knows their validity and everyone with power to do so, save the Dean's Office, has applied them. The Housemasters Committee, for instance, approved them when it accepted the Student Council's proposal last year. Even the Deanery at Yale has extended the New Haven curfew, first as an experiment and then as a permanent innovation.

Why the delay here, then? Perhaps it is due to strong prejudice, to nostalgia for the days when, as a once recalcitrant Housemaster said some years ago, you could "clear the decks and be just Harvard again." This it seems, is what the Dean's argument becomes upon full examination, and though understandable, it is hardly an adequate defense for continued refusal to liberalize the rules.

The Council, by way of the Housemasters Committee, has already presented a suitable proposal: extension of the time limit to eleven o'clock every Friday and Saturday night, and during the rest of the week, extensions at the Housemasters' discretion. The Council should recommend this plan again, with the hope that this year the Dean's Office will cling no longer to its unfounded misgivings.