GROWING PAINS

The average undergraduate plowing through the throngs in Sever or filing up and down the crowded stairs in Harvard Hall and Fogg cannot but have a vague impression that the class-room facilities of the college are being put to intensive use. But the report recently compiled by Dean Benedict and published in this morning's CRIMSON presents a truly startling array of figures. The fact that the rooms available for the use of the class meetings, apart from those set aside for special uses in the various laboratories and museums, are used up to nearly 100 percent capacity during the morning hours, reveals the fact that additions to the available space must be made in some way in the near future.

Apart from the waste of time incident upon the crowded conditions and the impossibility of any extra time at the end of the hour in which the instructor may answer questions, it is apparent that with the considerable increase in registration that will accompany the inauguration of the House Plan next year the physical limits of the present buildings will have been reached. While there remains a small margin of expansion in the fact that the rooms are not always used up to their full capacity, to take advantage of this small leeway would prove very difficult and would involve many undesirable features. Otherwise, the only recourse would be to multiply the number of afternoon classes, already unpopular among both professors and students.

The problem would not be solved by merely deciding to erect new buildings. There is certainly no room for additional structures in the Yard, and the few plots available immediately to the north have the double disadvantage of inaccessibility and of opposition to the projected growth of the college towards the south. The alternative of erecting a group of buildings suitable for class purposes central to the group of dormitories to be installed near the river-and leaving the Yard to the exclusive use of the Freshmen has the advantage of helping to unify both these groups. But the distance factor enters in again and would serve to make it impossible for those taking science courses to cover the long leagues between their laboratories and the river in the seven minutes allowed.

On the whole, new buildings to the north of the Yard seem the only practical solution. There may be other considerations that would make some other plan more advisable, but while opinions are still abundant on the subject of the House Plan nothing has been offered by University officials towards remedying this lack. Suitable living accommodations are important factors in providing for the welfare of the student but they are only one phase of the problem and it would be the utmost folly to develop them to the exclusion of the no less essential teaching facilities.