Lowell Is Trying to Impose from Above What a Good Fraternity Ought to Do by Itself...and a Response to The Crimson's House Plan

Stating his opinion on the House Plan, Professor R.E. Rogers '09, when interviewed by a Crimson reporter yesterday afternoon said that he considered it a definite break with the old Harvard tradition of responsible individualism.

"It is my belief that the Harvard House Plan is the result of the despairing conviction that the college is disintegrating," declared Professor Rogers, who has recently been in the public eye through his pleas for snobbery.

"Now the element in college life which should and used to take care of this need is the fraternity. But unfortunately even this is of a decidedly mediocre tone at the present time. Formerly the properly organized and well run fraternity or club made for intimate contact between groups of students, for there he received interests within the college, and he derived a great deal of what is worth while in college from the close contact and intimate living with his "crowd".

"It is not entirely improbable," he continued, "that President Lowell is despairing of the old system, and that he is trying to impose from above, in the shape of the House Plan, what a good fraternity ought to do of itself. He may have come to the conclusion that the college men of this generation are not intelligent or mature or serious enough to be allowed the traditional Harvard liberty, and is trying what seems to me a desperate measure to introduce from above some measure of homogeneity and coninuity into college life which undoubtedly does not today exist."

"Because of this, and because of the illiberal and paternalistic attitude with which it seems likely to be carried out, I consider it unlikely to be successful." Friday, January 3, 1930

The careful effort that has been made to minimize the shock of installing the House Plan, by avoiding too close an imitation of the Oxford-Cambridge system, has received several reverses in the proposed administration at Lowell House. The differences between it and its brother House are slight, yet they offer a certain basis for the contention that the new Harvard will be over-Anglicized; and they see definitely of a sort to restrain the development of the close relationship of student and tutor that is part of the House Plan. In Lowell House, the tutors table is to be a high table in position as well as in name, for it will be located on a platform raised above the rest of the dining room. Thus a barrier is created which, though small, will make less attractive the opportunity for students to dine at the tutors' table, and will probably diminish the number of those who do so.

Another factor in the situation is the location of the common rooms in Lowell House. The Tutors' Room will be behind the high table, and at a considerable distance from the Students' Room. Again, name and position are not considerations of great importance; yet, when contrasted with Dunster House, in which the corresponding rooms are adjacent, and will be called simply "Large" and "Small" common rooms, Lowell House seems to be assuming a needlessly reserved attitude.

The English system, in being transplanted, has necessarily been changed in many ways, with the especial purpose of adapting it to the American point of view. It would seem wise to start with as clear a slate as possible with no definite commitments to certain methods merely because they have been successful in another country. It has become fairly obvious by this time, that several of the tutors in Lowell House, enthusiastic over the English system because it seems to fit their personal needs, are unduly eager to start this house off with a strong anglophile bias.

The rank and file of Harvard students can hardly be expected to concur with this view and suspicion has already been aroused against what seems to be an artificially imposed British cast to the plans for Lowell House. The difference in social habits and the aims of higher education existing in the two countries precludes the possibility of any wholesale grafting of England's educational system upon that of the United States. Undoubtedly there are some features of the English system which may be useful in an American College, but just what these are can be more soundly determined if at first the House Plan is approached in an attitude of honest experiment, unprejudiced either way as to the incorporation of English ideas.   Monday, December 16, 1929