LOWELL OUTLINES HOUSE SYSTEM IN SPEECH AT ALBANY

The following are excerpts from an address given by President Lowell at the University of the State of New York, at Albany, on October 18. The article is an excellent summary of the purpose and the theory of the House Plan.

Substantial as the foundation may be, the Houses could not have been built thereon had it not been for the fact that Mr. Edward S. Harkness, quite unaware of our vision for the future, formed the opinion that a subdivision of a large American college would tend to solve many of its problems. He magnanimously offered to defray the cost involved, and found at Harvard an enthusiastic welcome to his ideas.

Residential Units

The Houses are to be residential units. The courses of instruction, the requirements for a degree, the examinations, the college discipline outside of good order in the House, will be as before, under the Faculty. So will the work of the tutors, for although this will be done so far as possible in the Houses, its nature and quality will remain under the supervision of the body of tutors for the department or division concerned. Nevertheless, the relation of the tutor to his pupil will be closer than ever, because, if unmarried, he will live and commonly take his meals in the same House as the pupil wherever that can be arranged; and if he lives with his family elsewhere he will have his room in the House, be a member of it and expected to take a reasonable number of meals there. Of course this will not be always possible, for each House cannot contain tutors on every subject. But it will be true in a large number of cases; and the tutors connected with the House will be one of the ties that bind the community there together into an academic unity. Something will also be gained by attaching to each House a few professors who do not tutor, but will give it their support and be occasionally present at its table.

Eat Meals in House

While the Houses ought not to be in all respects exactly alike, or precisely of the same size, they should in general be formed on a similar pattern. It is intended, therefore, that each should contain two hundred and fifty undergraduates, more or less, about equally divided among the three upper classes. They will be admitted to the House as sophomores, and although a transfer to another House for proper reasons may not be excluded, they will normally make it their home throughout the rest of their college course. They will be required to take, or rather to pay for--a less objectionable way of attaining the same practical result--a certain number of meals in the dining-room every week. Each of them will have his own bedroom and study, or share the study with a chum.

The crucial point is the selection of the students for each House. No college in the country, perhaps in the world, has a larger variety of undergraduates, coming from more different kinds of schools, than Harvard. This renders the selection for each House more difficult, and at the same time offers a remarkable opportunity if successfully accomplished.

Freshman Halls Successful

To us it seemed that a compulsory mixing for a single year would not be resented, that it would be regarded very differently from an arbitrary assortment for the whole college course, and that at the end of that year many new attachments would have been formed among men who in a large college would not otherwise meet so readily. That was the original motive for the Freshman Halls. Both of these anticipations have proved true. There has been no resentment at the compulsory assignment to the several Freshman Halls, although the policy of dividing those coming from the same school among different halls has been steadily pursued; while the formation of new friendships, the enlargement of social relations, has been notable.

At the time these Halls were projected the question of dividing the college into residential groups was as yet very remote, but quite apart from such an ultimate-object it was felt that to treat the Freshmen in this way had merits which made it eminently worthwhile, and the Halls were built. Now they can also serve the purpose for which they were first conceived, and there is all the more reason why separate halls for the freshmen should be retained. This is contrary to the views of some good friends, who do not appreciate the obstacles to be surmounted in carrying out the House plan, and urge that it would be better to include the freshmen in them. What may be possible at some future time, when the system has been so long in use as to create a firm tradition in the minds of prospective students, of their parents, and of headmasters of schools, is a different question.

Each House is intended to comprise as nearly as may be a cross-section of the whole residential membership of the college, to be selected by the Masters and their assistants from the applicants. I say from the applicants because there seems at present little doubt that for the two new Houses, to be finished in September, 1930, there will be more than applicants enough of all kinds: and when the plan is complete, students are unlikely to want to be left out of a system substantially universal. I should add that the applications may be made individually or in groups of moderate size.