DOWN TO HARD PAN

The activity of engineers in their drilling for hard pan back of Gore Hall indicates the approach of the House Plan in the shape of brick and mortar. Harvard men, however they may feel about the desirability of the Plan, can not help realizing that the University's social experiment is no longer a paper theory. Unit number one will shortly arise a reality.

Besides external evidences there is little fresh information to occupy the interest aroused among Harvard men by the announcement of the House Plan. Since the Harvard Club speeches in Boston no major outline of the authorities' plans has been made public. How the original program is being expanded and developed remains a mystery.

For example, there is the matter of the "high table" which is promised for the Master and tutors. One wonders what place in the social scheme these faculty tables will occupy. Used as a permanent separation in the dining hall the "high table" might, as the CRIMSON has before pointed out, usurp a desirable contact between preceptor and student. But other use of the "high tables" could be made besides one that follows the Oxford-Cambridge idea of segregation of tutors and students. Occasional use of the "high table" as a gathering place of the House resident and non-resident tutors would serve to coordinate the older members of the unit. To consider these tables as the means to a weekly or Di-weekly meeting of the preceptors and not as a substitute for a common tutor and student table, puts a more pleasant light on an important side of life within the new halls.

There would be no better way for Harvard men to form an opinion on the merits of the House Plan than to check off the proposed details of operation with the avowed principles behind the Plan. To do this facts are necessary. What the relations of the Master and undergraduates will be, how the residents will be chosen, whether or not Freshmen will be included, and a host of similar questions all must be answered before a definite conception of the Plan can be formed to match the physical progress being made down by the Charles.

When the Associated Harvard Clubs meet today in Cincinnati further information concerning the House Plan may be forthcoming. Only details of the House Plan can provide Harvard men with the material that is needed for serious thought to equal the passing interest awaiting the coming steam shovels.