COST OF BOARD AT MEMORIAL.

When the Harvard Dining Association was in the throes of despair last winter in its attempts to maintain a respectably large membership and at the same time keep down the price of the general board, the Corporation decided to lend its aid. A fixed guaranty of four dollars was finally decided upon and the new scheme of allowances for absences and the establishing of table for transients seemed at the time to warrant the guaranty. After the guaranty was removed, however, the boarders were left to the tender mercies of the Association and the Corporation withdrew.

Figures have recently been compiled for the month of October which show that during the first month of the College year the general board cost each member of the Association $4.67. This is considerably greater than the estimates made last year and is probably as high as it has ever been. Evidently something more than the general increase in the cost of living has been accountable for this difference. It seems the trouble has been due largely to a miscalculation in regard to the transient tables. Men eating at these tables have been able to board generously on an average of slightly less than twenty-five cents a meal with the result that these tables have been run at a large loss. This arrangement has now been changed and the general board henceforth should be much lower.

Even when this trouble has been adjusted satisfactorily, it seems doubtful if the Association can reduce the cost of board to the figure which they expected when the new plan was first put in operation. However, it is to be hoped that either the present plan can be put on such a basis that it will approximate what was expected of it, or, that the Corporation will consider the matter again and evolve a scheme for Memorial which will be satisfactory both to the boarder and to the finances of the Association. Perhaps an entirely new proposition would be the most beneficial.