SIGNPOSTS

As the first details of the operation of the House Plan at Yale and Harvard become established a sharp contrast distinguishes the two experiments. It is a contrast which throws two concepts of the university into clear relief. The class has long been the medium through which Yale reached her sons; perhaps, then, it was to be expected that the House Plan in New Haven would follow tradition and develop around the class and not, as at Harvard, through the college itself.

While at Harvard the House Plan will directly break up the college into smaller units, each one a representative of at least the three upper classes, at Yale it is the individual class that is to be divided into houses. Past experience in New Haven has demonstrated the advantages of building the class as a strong and active body. A closely knit class at graduation possesses attractions not to be minimized and it seems likely that some of these advantages will be increased by the Yale House Plan.

If the scheme to be tried in New Haven is in close harmony with existing theories, it is also true that the Harvard Corporation appears to have been influenced by principles of the past in choosing a form of the Hose Plan which emphasizes the Harvard idea of university spirit in its broadest sense. Characteristic of the plan in its relationship to the fundamental ideal of the university as a powerful cosmopolitan catalyst fusing a rich and tangible whole from various strong, individual components.

Placed alongside its Yale brother, the Harvard House Plan displays potential qualities not found in its companion. Built around the class, the Yale idea is beset with the danger of bringing out the narrow, provincial features inherent in any confined social unit. To intensify the unit to this extreme is to cast aside one of the greatest benefits of the plan the university ideal of the intermixture of mutually agreeable men to different stages of intellectual evolution.

The comparison of the two plans not only shows their fundamental differences, but makes more evident the direction in which Harvard is going. That the plan aims to directly make the individual a more real part of Harvard is apparent. Whether or not it can do this, whether it can accomplish its end, depends on its ability to steer clear of provincialism, and, a what is equally important, at the same time to avoid encroachments on the freedom of the individual in the last analysis, the successful practice of the theory rests in a great degree on the personnel of the first Houses.