PROF. LEACOCK ASTOUNDED BY FRESHMAN DORMITORIES

"I am simply astounded by your Freshman dormitories" said Professor Stephen Leacock in an interview shortly after he had been shown about the University last Friday. "Nothing else to my mind compares to those great buildings in which every year the newcomers learn to love and know the spirit that makes Harvard what it is.

Foster a Spirit of Unity

"The University should be proud of the benefactors who have made possible this great advance in collegiate life. When students meet only in the class-room they can not hope to have that spirit of unity which is best gained by sharing all things together as do your Freshmen.

"In fact," he continued, "I am strongly tempted to send my son, Stephen Leacock, Jr., to Harvard if for nothing else than for the advantages he would gain by living in those dormitories. In Canada our universities have no such community buildings and I have never been more strongly impressed by our loss than today when I first saw the dormitories here."

Asked as to whether he favored the system of having dormitories for all the classes, Professor Leacock replied that strongly as the dormitories impressed him, he could never support any plan that endangered the freedom of the individual. "We have seen the effect of the Prussian system of compulsion in the universities," he went on, "and we must be careful that we do not lose that freedom which has always characterized British and American university life.

Must Find Favor Gradually

"Unquestionably the dormitory is the best solution of the college housing problem but it must win its way gradually into the approval of the student body. Build your dormitories so attractive that men can ill afford to live elsewhere and you need worry no longer as to the necessity for compulsion. As your Freshmen would rather live in the dormitories than outside of them so would your upperclassmen find their dormitories so rich in opportunity that they would not risk losing what they might thus gain."