HUGHES AND THE HOUSES

The address given by Charles Evans Hughes at the one hundredth anniversary of the Rhode Island Alpha of Phi Beta Kappa is especially interesting in the light of recent developments at Harvard. Dealing with the subject of college from the standpoint of both student and educator, the Chief Justice declared: "We may at times overestimate what can be accomplished in the few years of college training, and there are not wanting those who in their zeal to dignify and extend college work forget that college is made for man and not man for college . . ." Striking against attitudes of indifference, intolerance, and cynicism Chief Justice Hughes further restated the new concept of education as life itself, not merely an idealistic preparation for life.

The majority of undergraduates cannot fail to be in agreement with such a viewpoint. The fact that this viewpoint was presented as palatable for a Phi Beta Kappa gathering does not detract from its value to the ordinary layman. Especially at Harvard, Georgian overtones carefully mingled with the muted chords of aristocracy must be balanced by a freer cadence, or an overpowering suffocation may cloud the symphony completely. In an environment such as the House Plan has created and will create, an environment beautiful in itself and of itself good, the student may have difficulty in remembering that it is the House and not himself that is to be stippled, dadoed, and painted in conventional murals.

"Education, under a proper conception of it, becomes life itself", booms the Chief Justice, and the word "life" as he uses it implies an environment which the student acts upon, not one which merely acts upon him.

Present-day college educators have provided the student with a pleasant array of physical comforts, have built for him a cloister and a hearth, have provided him with unprecedented athletic facilities. Now they only have to ask that he refuse to stifle. With respect to creating a zest for knowledge and, above all, a zest for life, they remain with their eighteenth century predecessors, waiting for the horse to drink of the living water.