Rich Boys And Poor Boys

In 1682, a Spanish-born Harvard student who later rocketed to fame as one of the great early 20th century philosophers, arrived at Harvard to find his "first room, on the ground floor in the northeast corner of Hollis, was one of the cheapest to be had in Cambridge: the rent was forty-four dollars a year. I had put it first for that reason on my list of rooms, and got my first choice. It was so cheap because it had no bedroom, no water, and no heating..."

George S. Santayana, Class of 1886, was to live in conditions not much better than this for his entire four years at Harvard. His situation was not uncommon for a significant portion of Harvard undergraduates at that time. They ate, drank, slept and studied cheaply.

But there were those who lived the good life as Harvard undergraduates. In turn of the century Harvard, those who were not compelled by finances to live as Santayana did, found more suitable private accommodations in a fairly grand style at the clubs or in apartments along Mount Auburn Street.

These "Gold Coast" apartments, which were to become Adams House, Claverly Hall, and Apley Court, were the most desirable homes for any well-to-do undergraduate. Theodore Roosevelt. Class of 1880, originally housed with the "regular" Harvard students in the Yard, soon left for the exclusivity of the "Gold Coast," because he felt the ill-mannered, poor boys of the Yard dorms drank too much and partied too often.

The Gold Coast, home for those members of high society who could afford it, was exclusive indeed. Its residents generally had their own maids or butlers and in some cases brought their own cooks--if they chose not to dine at a final club.

The name Gold Coast indicated this pre-existence. As John H. Finch '25, professor of Class and master of Eliot House for 26 years, recounts, "The fashion tended to be on the Gold Coast--this included even frequenting separate eating places from the poor boys."

This very elitist existence of the well-born couldn't last. The years following World War I saw an influx of students that forced the University, under President A. Lawrence Lowell, Class of 1877, to look for a new way of housing undergraduates. And it was approximately 50 years ago that the concept of divying up undergraduates into residential Houses was dangled before Lowell. It was a concept that still persists, and the merits of which are still debated.

The House plan was in the tradition of the English system at Oxford--a small House community was set up to counter any feelings of impersonalization and alienation created by increased numbers of students. Less voiced, but easily as significant a reason for creating a House system, was a desire to reduce the tremendous social division between the occupants of the Gold Coast, and those living in the Yard.

It was a $13 million gift from a disgruntled Yalie--he had offered to fund a Houses system at Yale but had been turned down by the faculty there--in 1926 that allowed Lowell to pull the residential House plan from his top drawer and present it to the faculty as a fait accompli. Not, however, without much opposition. In addition to alumni, the decision produced an uproar among clubbies who had no desire to lose their exclusive status or to live in a heterogeneous situation. Lowell found himself walking a tight political line: he said he wasn't out to destroy the club system and social amenities as they were then practiced. He told a group of alumni in 1929. "The policy of Harvard for a score of years has been leading up to this result: to abolish social segregation on the Gold Coast.

To an extent, Lowell's predictions were correct: the Gold Coast was swallowed up into the Harvard Houses, but clubbies and the remnants of high society still remain as separate groups in the Houses. Traditions of social distinction still live on, even if in diluted form: witness Lowell House high table dinners.

When begun in 1929, the institution of high table dinners--which literally were eaten at a table elevated above the rest of the dining room--brought the President, distinguished guests and faculty to Lowell to sup in dinner jackets and starched shirts. The event came under heavy fire from students as being "grotesquely ridiculous," "an undemocratic display of starched laundry," and "one of the most forced and misplaced institutions ever established at Harvard." But the master at that time, Julian L. Coolidge, Class of 1895, who had been an opponent of the democratizing efforts of the House system, saw high table as a way to keep the hoi-pollai in line.

Lowell still has a high table in its dining room and though it is a remnant of older, more elitist days, approximately twice a month a group of seniors, House associates and faculty get together for dinner apart from the rest of the House. No longer exclusive, the tradition nonetheless remains.

Eventually the Houses came to be an accepted part of the routine of Harvard life if only out of financial necessity for an increased number of students. People, Finley said, "saw that the Houses were going to be places originally not crowded, and done in real style. Meals were served by waitresses and it was really quite grand." If getting into a particular House makes a difference now, then it made one's social world.

However, though the question often arose as to whether the Houses were performing the function for which they were originated, until the late 1950s no heavy indictments were leveled at the Houses. Finley termed the '50s a "very, very happy period. Nobody ever failed to get into medical school or law school. I don't want to boast, but we [at Eliot] had 28 Rhodes when I was there. I think we only missed once. But that's only symbolic."

As Eliot House may have had its over abundance of Rhodes, prepples and clubbies, almost all the Houses in the '50s had their own reputations. All, however, were thought of as "friendly." The discontent and alienation people were often to feel from a large University and its members in the next 20 years was barely on the horizon. A 1954 Social Relations Department study of House reputations found Leverett to be "friendly and happy-go-lucky:" Kirkland was seen as "conventional, middle class and friendly:" Dunster "sociable, happy-go-lucky and athletic;" Adams "musical, aesthetic, ambitious, conventional, friendly, sociable;" Lowell "intellectual, literary, conservative, and intelligent;" Eliot "wealthy, aristocratic, snobbish, white shoe and conservative," and the last House, Winthrop, came out as "athletic, friendly, straightforward, and middle class."

The stereotypes may have persisted, but student attitudes toward the Houses, and the involvement of associates and Faculty, shifted as the 1950s wore on. Dean K. Whitla, co-author of the 1974 "Perspective on the Houses of Harvard and Radcliffe" and head tutor of Lowell House during part of this time, said last week in his top-floor University Hall office, as the chants of an anti-Gallo demonstration filtered in through the open window, "In the heady days of this place, there was a tendency among students to reject people who dropped in for a meal and the like. But that's not so anymore. Students are really not formidable at all."

For one thing, the Houses have changed. Most important of all, there's co-residency, which brought the end of parietals. And there's also the new method of House selection.

Most Harvard administrators interviewed last week said women in the Harvard Houses altered the atmosphere of House life more than any other factor. Whitla said women living in the Houses "got rid of the hated parietal rules, which had been a burr under the saddle of so many people. And it improved the tone of the House and dining hall." Finley agrees: "The introduction of girls was a very monumental step in an intellectual direction. Conversation is politer because girls are not so bullish."

Whitla dismisses the notion that many women are actually discontented with their status in the Houses, a situation caused by sex ratios heavily weighted toward men, which too often makes women seem not human but merely representatives of sex. "Our survey [the Whitla-Pinck Report] showed less complaints about ratios than one would expect. In Eliot, women are pretty happy. Maybe the type of women who want to live in Eliot House like the ratios as they are now."

With all the changes that have come and gone since the Soc Rel class study, the House reputations, though perhaps of minimal import now, persist. Adams is still called artsyfartsy and intellectual (though many will preface the latter with "pseudo"); Lowell is still intellectual (though with its fair share of preppies); Winthrop is still seen as easy-going; Eliot is still snobbish, white shoe and conservative.

This year's seniors, though, are the last undergraduate class to come up under the old system. As one Adams House junior said. "I guess the seniors are sort of weird. They're the last ones to try to keep up the pretensions especially in Adams."

The new method for House selection may, to a large extent level out the ratio inequities. House masters can no longer personally select any of the incoming House occupants. A slick new computer and a slick new system are helping to erase stereotypes that still exist among the Houses. The computer also attempts to alleviate the discontent of those who get stuck in a House in which they had no desire even to eat, much less live.

In Finley's day, masters had a tremendous say in choosing potential Olympic champions. Rhodes scholars or paleontologists. "I used to interview everyone, read about them in the Freshman files, and find out who their friends were," Finley said, slyly revealing what he considered his secret to a successful Eliot House.

So the old systems of patronage have disappeared, and the sexes now mix freely in the Houses. Too freely for some. Students seem less hostile toward the Houses and Faculty than in the '60s, but less oriented toward them as well.

Approximately 50 years after Lowell's massive reworking of Harvard housing, the question still remains: Have the Houses fulfilled the function they were originally intended for? Are they small personal and intellectual centers of students life? David Riesman '31. Ford Professor of Social Science, says both yes and no.

"In social terms they've already done a part of the job of egalitarian leveling by destroying the huge separations that existed in an earlier era. In terms of academic, intellectual life, though, they have not lived up to the original intentions."

Student-Faculty contact has reached minute proportions with House associates often coming to the Houses to perform their perfunctory duties only once or twice a year. "Probably the majority of Faculty is indifferent to the Houses," Riesman says. "Perhaps a quarter to a third of Faculty has more than nominal involvement."

Rooming is certainly an important factor in undergraduate happiness at Harvard, but the degree to which the Oxford-style House system will affect a student's four years here is uncertain. Riesman speculates that a small House with a lot of community feeling would reduce the anxieties felt throughout the College. Harvard he said, "has done much less than it might have to respond to the sense of anomie and alienation that students feel."

That real sense of community Lowell wanted to focus undergraduate life around seems long gone. "We're up against nearly hopeless odds in creating any community feeling--and the more talk there is of community the less effort there seems to be made on everyone's part," Reisman said.