Lowell Celebrates Birthday

Only the Houses have held Harvard together through 20 stormy years, Provost Buck suggested last night as Lowell House rang in its 20th birthday with a waitress-served dinner and punch "not wholly without appeal."

"They came at a time when Houses were needed," Buck said. "Since then, we've gone through a depression, the era of the New Deal, World War II, and whatever we have now"--and the House system has survived successfully.

Housemaster Elliott Perkins '23 agreed that "we needed the Houses to prevent the College from being absorbed into the city," thereby becoming a Columbia University of Boston.

Julian L. Coolidge '95, Lowell's first master, said students looked skeptically on the Houses at first, as if they "were being sent back to a school where they would be tucked into bed at night." Recalling how the tradition of House dances started, Coolidge said that one day he started a rumor campaign in the dining hall, asking students,

"What's a House dance?" was the inevitable reply. But within a few days the House committee was coming to Coolidge and saying there seemed to be "some talk" about a House dance. Coolidge agreed that it might be a good idea.

Malcolm P. Aldrich, trustee of the Harkness Fund, told how he had once asked President Conant whether the House plan was a success. "House plan?" said Conant. "There is no House plan. The Houses are Harvard."

Above are Coolidge, Buck, Aldrich, and Perkins pictured during a speech.