AUTOCRAT OF THE DINING TABLE

The announcement in today's CRIMSON of a minimum board charge of $7.50 in the new Houses comes as a gesture of sympathy to the widespread opinion that the former charge was too high. A few men will benefit by the change, but the chief evil in the system has in no way been mitigated. With an average price of $.75 per meal, only the most wealthy can afford to take advantage of the plan and by eating breakfast in the House free themselves from the necessity of eating a disproportionate number of lunches and dinners there. Since these are the meals which are normally the ones to be taken in clubs, or in some convenient location in the square or near a Boston theatre, no outstanding advantage is to be found in the present compromise.

The man who goes away weekends, has a club, and is forced carefully to budget his board allowance is still in as bad a position as before. The difference of four meals is absurdly out of proportion with the one dollar reduction in price of the new proposal. In other words the man who selects the lower rate will have to pay an average of $.25 for the four extra meals or lose money. At current club or restaurant prices this is impossible or at least unhealthy. Those men not in a position to lose money are still penalized, a situation hardly in accord with the spirit of democracy supposed to be essential to the House idea.

The Bursar's statement that this method is the only one under which it is possible for him to break even puts it still definitely up to those in higher authority to permit a certain loss during the early days of experimentation. A virtual subsidy of this sort should, after all, be made by those distinctly in favor of common student dining halls and not imposed from without upon men who through lack of sympathy with the idea are forced to sacrifice personal inclinations or actual money in order to assure the success of a project which they do not fully favor.