Coincidental Intelligence

For once the University's reverence of precedence can do it some good. The temporary policy instituted this year of allowing upperclassmen to live outside the Houses can be continued and made permanent. This is an excellent policy, making a fortuitous coincidental solution to two longstanding problems. In addition to the already overcrowded conditions in the Houses, there is a group of unhappy commuters who want rooms at Harvard; and there is a group who had rooms who were happy to relinquish them.

The House Masters, either because they are afraid their Houses will collapse if every student is not within the walls or because they do not take desires of students seriously, now want to thwart this lucky coincidence. Mr. Perkins insists that the policy is "striking at the roots of the House system." Clearly the system has not been ruined so far, and while the University is committed to the system a veritable handful of students living around the Square will not make any difference. Also, very often it is just the students who like the Houses least who do the Houses the least good. Perhaps to have those cynical about the House system removed from the Houses is not a bad idea.

Other Masters, like jolly school teachers, find only a certain whimsical humor in the supposition that any sane, intelligent undergraduate would want to live outside the amenable ivy walls of their domains. They seem puzzled, and try to figure out what whims of motivation could be making certain students act so strangely. Mr. Conway, after he admits there was much pressure to live out, blandly observes that the policy of private residence was "a good thing in itself, demonstrating the values of House life." That is, everyone who lives outside the warm House walls this year will find the big world so cold and cruel that he would never want to leave home again. Mr. Brower seems to think the considerations were economic ones, and trusts all will return to the fold because they have found it too expensive.

From the Master's statements yesterday one might think that there are no serious, valid reasons for students who want to live out to do so. But there are reasons, such as privacy and avoidance of beer-party fraternizing or the need for seclusion. For some there is the need to escape the routine of trekking back and forth from the dining hall and bothering with the social amenities in order to manage serious academic accomplishment in their last two years. And some men just want to feel less like a college boy and more like an individual. This feeling is not without parallel in the Harvard tradition.

The Committee on the Houses should not act on yesterday's words, but should go on a second thought. And that second thought should be, that to force all upper-classmen into House rooms will only make a certain segment of the student body unhappy and make the rest of it uncomfortable. By lucky necessity, students got their rightful way with the University this year, and it is foolish, when the necessity is gone, for the attendant privileges and advantages to go with it. There is no reason that the University should not continue and make permanent its present policy of permitting reasonable numbers of men to live outside the Houses.