To Make a House a Home

Skirting the fundamental deficiencies which prevent the House Plan from fulfilling its design, the University's $6000 allocation to each House for permanent physical improvements nevertheless represents a concrete step toward conquering the epithet of "glorified dormitories." The stated purpose of the expenditure is to "improve the livability" of the Houses and make men residing in them feel that they belong to an institution of educational fellowship--with more to offer than room and board. While few harbor delusions about the extent to which a $42,000 outlay can revitalize the House Plan, this is at the same time a definite opportunity which must be capitalized.

So far as a sense of "belonging" and personal participation is concerned, the Housemasters have to a man made the mistake of proceeding with various proposals without seriously attempting to bring House membership into the selection process. Next Thursday the masters will meet with Provost Buck, and final machinery will swing into motion; few undergraduates will even have known that anything was in the wind. Here was a "natural" for securing interested cooperation from House residents and simultaneously forwarding House-consciousness. Instead the discussion and the decisions have been largely in the hands of tutorial staffs--although one master remarked that he had consulted briefly with his House Committee chairman.

Notwithstanding this bypassing of undergraduate opinion and the fact that $6000 hardly permits substantial action, certain of the masters appear to have formulated sound programs. In Lowell plans are underway for the installation of sound-absorbent material in a dining hall crowded as it has never been and continuously filled with the clatter of knives and forks. Such an improvement--a genuine shot in the arm for "education over the breakfast table"--neatly meets the spirit of Provost Buck's gesture. Similarly in Leverett the projected overhauling of the Library lighting system may well stimulate use of House facilities for that study and intellectual camaraderie which the House Plan was founded to advance. What the masters must take care to avert is short-sighted renovation which does not make a positive contribution, however limited, in behalf of realizing President Lowell's original concept.