LIBERTY DEPENDS ON POCKETBOOK IN PRESENT SYSTEM

The following article was written by T. H. Eliot '28, a former editor of the Crimson, and last year holder of the Lionel de Jersey Harvard Studentship at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, England.

One phase of the Harvard House Plan comes as something of a shock to one who, as a Harvard undergraduate, was used to being allowed the large amount of independence for which Harvard is distinguished and who also, as a Cambridge undergraduate, felt the annoyance of the rules and restrictions characteristic of the English universities.

Freedom Depends on Cash

A charge of $8.50 for 14 meals a week is to be imposed upon the students in the new Houses. That means 60 cents a meal. Few undergraduates eat breakfasts costing 60 cents. Hence, as pointed out elsewhere in this paper, for all those students who cannot afford to waste money freely the charge amounts to a requirement that every single luncheon and dinner be eaten in the House. That is a requirement at once putting a violent check to the whole spirit of independence of choice at Harvard, and making freedom depend more than ever upon the amount of money an undergraduate can afford to throw away.

English Eating Plans

What are the eating arrangements in those English universities which bulk so large in every discussion of the House Plan? Take Emmanuel College, Cambridge, John Harvard's own college. There a charge is imposed for five dinners a week. If a man eats less than five "in Hall" he is wasting money for he is charged for the uneaten meal, even as in the Harvard Houses. Five meals a week, instead of 14! Of course, they must all be dinners: but that is a small hardship because the Cambridge undergraduates have no large city ten minutes away, and they must be in their colleges at a comparatively early hour each night.

Compulsion Disliked

One recent experience at Emmanuel bears examining. Two years ago, it was decided to serve luncheon in hall, the undergraduates not being required to attend. The experiment has been a great success. Not only have the luncheons been well patronized, but the students, who are forever complaining about the food served at dinner, are loud in their praise of the quality of the luncheons. The food is, I think any impartial observer would agree, just as bad--or good--at luncheon as it is at dinner. But one meal is optional and the other is required: one is good, one bad.

That brings up an obvious point for consideration in connection with the House plan. If the meals at the Houses are good and well-served, if the surroundings are pleasant, if there is a real undergraduate objection to "eating around they will be well attended anyway, regardless of requirement. And if the meals are not all of these things, certainly no student should be required to eat them.

Freedom Preferred

The requirement is not, of course, a rule saying "you shall eat 14 meals here each week." But it is a bill for $8.50 which virtually says: "Unless you are rich and can waste money, you must eat all your luncheons and dinners here." That is a requirement inconsistent with Harvard tradition and with English practice. It is a rule which, for the welfare of the House plan and the Harvard undergraduates, should be vastly modified. Incipient protests at Harvard and successful precedents at Cambridge both point to the importance and value of changing the announced plans, and leaving the undergraduates at least a good-sized of their present freedom.