SENIOR DORMITORIES AND 1912.

The statement of the Junior Dormitory Committee to the effect that the number of applications for Yard rooms received to date has not been as great as expected is disappointing and discouraging. The importance both to the class of 1912 and to the College as a whole of attracting a large proportion of next year's Seniors to the dormitories in the Yard can hardly be overstated.

With the gradual development of Harvard from a small College to one of the largest in the country came a marked decrease in its unity and solidarity. Such a state inevitably produced factions, cliques, and what has been aptly described as "division into social groups along horizontal lines." Within the last few years efforts to remedy this condition have met with ever-increasing success. Two main forces stand out as those which must be relied on chiefly to bring about the eventual solidification of the respective classes into cohesive units.

These two forces are the Freshman Dormitories and the union of the Senior class in the Yard. Students of condition Harvard have been unanimous in their approval of President Lowell's new plan for first year men. To have the whole Senior class rooming together in the Yard is the logical complement of this system. It will mean that the work begun in the Freshman year is rounded out and made permanent in the Senior year.

Naturally the entire Senior class can not be persuaded to room in the Yard in one year or in two. It must be a gradual development. A splendid start in this direction was made by 1911. It would be most unfortunate if the Juniors fail to live up to the example of their immediate predecessors.

The class of 1912 owes it to the College and to itself to make every effort, and do so at once, to set a new record in the number of its members to room in the Yard.