VIRTUE ON THE HALF SHELL

In its new regulation concerning the entertainment of women in the Houses the University has relapsed a long way toward the bigoted puritanism which it has been trying to disown for many years.

The requirement that women friends of students must enter the Houses in groups or not at all is an unwarranted display of paternalism on the part of University Hall, ridiculous in its conception and a nuisance in its effect. The history of Harvard social life during the five years of the House plan gives no excuse for such Pinkerton tactics, while the regulation itself points the finger of suspicion at every young lady who has ever been entertained unchaperoned within Harvard walls.

By what curious process of thinking did University Hall come to the conclusion that vice walks unattended or virtue walks in pairs? It seems possible that the DuBarrys of Cambridge and Allston can be induced to pool their assets for the benefit of a group party, and then joy may reign unconfined in the Houses with the blessings of both janitors and House Masters.

If the rule has been made as a means of insurance against Boston public opinion or the sensationalism of that city's press, the self-righteous authorities responsible for it have sadly missed the boat. The most embarrassing of Harvard scandals in recent years, the Dunster House affair of last autumn and the subsequent tragedy at Winthrop, occurred when the rooms were teeming with numerous guests of both sexes.

The irony of the situation lies in the fact that such petty annoyances are put in the way of students, while the normal requirements of decency, such as preventing loose women from walking into the Houses at three in the morning, are allowed to lapse by an incompetant staff.

If past experience carrys any weight, scandal at Harvard has been more restricted than a university of this size has any right to expect. The decency of most of the young ladies attending Harvard functions, along with a happy regard for the "time-and-place-for-that-sort-of-thing" doctrine, has kept the social life here in better taste than that of any other university of comparable size and diversity.

Grundyism has no place in a University at whose Tercentenary the keynote was a loud protestation of tolerance, liberalism, and fair play. Upon President Conant's return from England the issue must be put up to him frankly and squarely. Whatever lapses of virtue take place at Harvard can never be curtailed by a rule which does not prohibit but merely shouts out the terms: "DOUBLE OR NOTHING!"