High Table

In the present heyday of high pressure University dining halls where diners are dealt with the speed of a card simile, leisure and elegance are otter deemed obstructions to progress. In this utilitarian atmosphere, the Lowell House High Table, a very elegant and leisurely formal dinner of the House's master, tutors, and invited Seniors (chosen in rotation) comes as a curious anomaly.

Each Monday night the High Table begins with pre-game social drinks in the Junior Common Room, where the House's dinner guests can meet the battery of tutors and undergraduates. At six thirty, either fortified with tomato juice or mellowed with sherry, the whole company files into the House dining hall to eat the regular fare with "a little extra" at the long, raised table at one end of the room.

During the dinner, there is little ceremony. Julian Coolidge, the House's first Master, who imported the High Table custom from Oxford, intended the Monday night dinners as a social mixer for the House staff and undergraduates. The few traditions and ceremonies that the Table does have were designed by Coolidge to ward off pompousness and keep the atmosphere easy and friendly. Thus, alert to the malaise that accompanies the combination of a heavy meal, a discourse, and a tuxedo, he expressly banished any after-dinner orations. And Elliott Perkins, the present Master, follows the old Arabic custom of taking salt with one's friends; he passes around the table a large silver urn, the gift of Coolidge. The salt is no personal eccentricity of Perkins'; it takes the place of wine at High Table. With local liquor reguations what they are, the Houses are forbidden to serve alcoholic beverages, and thus instead of offering up a toast in wine, the High Table guest dips into the salt.

Besides the salt, High Table has slowly acquired several other gifts. Coolidge also donated a gold plate with the escutcheon of the House on it. The designer of the House--a different Coolidge--gave the candelabra, while Baliol College in Oxford contributed a silver plate.

The Table's guests, as diversified as its donors, have run the gauntlet from English naval officers to Cambridge politicians. Ex-City Manager Atkinson, and Cambridge City Mayor Crane have both come more than once, as well as various distinguished Lowell House alumni who make their presence in Boston known to the House Secretary.

From its inception the tradition has battled a host of troubles. Enthusiasts of the custom have long engaged in a gentlemanly scramble to maintain its greater and lesser traditions. The Boston fire laws of the post Cocoanut Grove era have since snuffed out the Table's candles that on its opening night in the thirties supplied the only light in the dining hall when the power failed twice. During the war, the Table's original customs nearly disappeared as a shortage of help forced patrons to abandon their tuxedos and stand in line for their food with the rest of the House. After the war, the House Council voted back "dressing" with the service.

The Table has long aroused college men both pro and con. The sight of a group of tuxedoed men eating better food on a raised platform has stirred the democratic ire, of many a student. The Table's opponents claim that it is a snobbish piece of showiness, while its defenders say that it is a good way of bringing together the House staff and undergraduates.

The dissenters organized just once to give the High Table a keen, if short-lived, ribbing. The Low Table, started and ended on one evening in the thirties, was manned by some twenty-odd gentlemen resplendent in knickers, white tie, top hat, and white beard. The Lows sat just under the dais and taunted the Highs until, coerced, the Highs conceded and invited their bearded caricatures to dinner.