Message Center Will Deliver Sonnets

The mating game has always been the Summer School's favorite pastime, but in recent years Cupid has had a battalion of assistants working out of Matthews Hall 1.

The Summer School Message Center was established a few years ago to fill a communication gap which exists during the summer at Harvard, since relatively few dormitory residents have private phones and none of the dorms has a reception desk.

Three messengers are on hand from 9 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. each day to carry communications between Summer School men and women.

No Unsigned Notes

To limit the volume of messages handled, Mrs. Marcia Kaufman, director of the Center, admitted, certain criteria have been established for the notes which will be carried. A ban has been imposed on unsigned epistles of the "Hey, baby, I really think you're neat" genre.

Mrs. Kaufman further stipulated that no sealed messages would be delivered. This tends to inhibit significant communications, such as propositions for midnight love trysts on the banks of the Charles.

In addition, a note handled by the Message Center must be delivered to a specific person. This rule dashes the hopes of any operator who has considered the possibility of sending a request for a date from door to door in a women's dormitory.

Despite these roadblocks in the path to a meaningful relationship, the Message has been handling nearly 200 communications a day. In addition, Mrs. Kaufman said, students seem to view the office as a combination information service, date bureau, and police station.

On several occasions, she said, frantic young ladies have phoned to say that they just stepped out of the shower clad in a towel, are expecting a date to call any minute, and are locked out of their rooms. (These cries for help are calmly referred to the University police.)

At times males come to Matthews 1 beautiful, green-eyed blonde in English with a request on the line of, "I saw a S-160 this morning. Who is she?" These males are left to their own devices.

But if they manage to sit next to green-eyes next morning, they can read her name on her notebook, and then...