COME INTO MY PARLOR

The reception of women guests in students' rooms is apparently being looked upon with increasing liberality by the authorities of Eastern universities. The CRIMSON's survey of the regulations in force at Harvard's contemporaries reveals a tendency to ease up on the usual old requirement that a chaperon be present whenever young ladies enter the dormitories. At Yale, for example, two students need no chaperon to obtain permission to receive a girl in a dormitory room in the afternoon. Such parietal rules contrast strikingly with those at Harvard where a student may not so much as show his rooms to his sister unless she is attended by an elderly or married woman.

Harvard's strict regulations were framed to meet the conditions of dormitory life in Cambridge. They have for the most part accomplished their purpose and when administrated with reasonable flexibility, satisfied all parties concerned. With the advent of the House Plan the circumstances of dormitory life are somewhat changed, especially in regard to the situation that necessitated the present rules. A new set of local conditions combined with a general new attitude throughout the country on this question suggests a possible revision of the Harvard regulations.

An occasion like today's football game illustrates the desirability of modifying the present code so that two or three students might informally entertain. In their rooms for luncheon or tea without a chaperon. That there are valid objections to such change is doubtful, since similiar entertainment has been successful in such representative American universities as Yale and Princeton, and in conservative Oxford and Cambridge.

Any change in the Parietal Regulations must come from the Administrative Board. The CRIMSON believes that a thorough investigation of the whole question is highly desirable. A study of the situation by the Student Council and by the Undergraduate House Committee would be a logical first step.

The CRIMSON in its own examination of the subject has formulated a tentative plan. According to this proposal, the various houses would be tuthorized to establish days when the residents could entertain as outlined above. These days might be once a week, once a month, whenever the occasion seems to be suitable. The organization of the House Plan permits what the old dormitory system did not; all gates but one may be closed and unattended guests excluded; private baths eliminate the danger of meeting half dressed men coming from the showers; house responsibility with tutors sharing in the life of the residents provides a new type of social unit.

Other institutions have tried plans even more radical than this. Their experience makes it possible for Harvard to follow a blazed trail. The University would be taking no radical step to excite Mrs. Grundy or even the Deans of womens' colleges. Smith and Mount Holyoke have already shown that college girls can have their own regulations despite the hospitality of near-by Amherst fraternities.

Harvard is deservedly noted for its non-paternalistic attitude towards its students. If the House Plan should prove sympathetic towards this traditional policy its opponents would be reduced to the category of false-alarmists. In borrowing the trappings of Oxford and Cambridge for the House Plan it would seem sensible to impart a few English customs that will readily take root in the Harvard soil. One of these importations, already planted in New Haven and Princeton, is a liberal attitude towards the reception of young ladies in students' rooms.

(Reprinted from this morning's issue.)