IS IT THE FAULT?

The latest, if not the last, discussion of the House Plan, which appears in the New York Times, is perhaps the most authentic extra-official treatment yet accorded to the subject. Confining himself to easy interpretation of the scheme in phrases which have already become familiar by reiteration, the writer nevertheless strikes the same note of optimism for its future that has been heard in all official pronouncements on the question.

There is inherent in the House Plan an idealism attractive to all those who are valiant for progress, and Mr. Broch's view of the case is influenced by it to a large degree. His view is that of the normal outside observer who sees in the pictures painted for publicity a social and mental readjustment which he believes is a crying need in the universities of the country. That Harvard has consented--after a happy accident--to be the guinea pig in the experiment is to her glory.

A few sentences suffice for Mr. Brock to dismiss the objections of Harvard men to the plan; probably he has not been exposed to these objections for long, and in any event an outsider lacks the close contact of those near to the subject. While this proximity may in some instances blind one to the large significances which are said to be apparent at a distance, it does induce an appreciation of more intimate aspects which appear equally pertinent.

The fundamental assumption of Mr. Brock's article, of all its brethren which have crowded the public prints lately and indeed of the House Plan itself, is that what is wrong with Harvard College can be made right by the creation of new moulds into which to pour the malleable masses that now choke the educational machinery in Cambridge. Judging by undergraduate opposition to the House Plan, one must conclude that Harvard itself notices very little the clogging of its system. It is this refusal to consider as a weakness what others see as the major fault to be corrected that has caused the split in the Harvard camps; no amount of official assurance or calm approval from the outside can make the undergraduate believe that he needs a more settled world to live in.