". . . By Bread Alone"

(Ed. Note--The Crimson does not necessarily endorse opinions expressed in printed communications. No attention will be paid to anonymous letters and only under special conditions, at the request of the writer will names be withheld.)

To the Editor of the CRIMSON:

Whatever anyone may think, the House Plan is admittedly by its creators a perpetuation of Professor Merriman's idea, which he has never been at a loss to proclaim. Granting that, how can the dining hall system be anything except what it is? If you want the House to be a unit, you want people to eat in the House; and if you want people to eat in the House, you can scarcely want less than ten meals per person per week; one a day and three besides or two a day Monday through Friday. As for getting the beast to drink, he may holler if you pinch him in the pocketbook, but where else will you pinch him? You could put it up to University 4, a shocking alternative but the only one.

A recent letter in these columns contained a very entraining argument: If they want us to eat with congenial people, why I' God's name do they want us to eat in the House? Very fair, but let's join in a ring-around-the-rosie with the High Table in the centre and sing some chant to remind ourselves that the House provides not only showers, not only it braries, but also congenial friends. That's the purpose of it. One suggestion has been that people may charge their meals in any House. If these are to be charged as part of the ten we should be eating in our own, I do not see how we can keep faith with History 1 and still view with equanimity the prospect of some dining hall closed for the season or perhaps serving one forlorn breakfast a day.

I hate to see a good doctor concern himself too much with symptoms and forget the disease, and it is just this that many are doing and publicly. The dining hall system is part of an experiment in unity, involving, to be sure, vivisection. The particular dog is not expected to profit greatly. An objection to the dining hall system is pretty much an objection to the purpose of the House Plan, and I daresay that one will be as unavailing as the other--for the time being, rightly so. Nobody, least of all the authorities empowered to act, will say that the evidence of a year and a half is conclusive.

May I summarize to the extent of saying that the House Plan as it is entails the current eating restrictions quite as a matter of logic; that the House Plan as it isn't is still below the horizon; and that the real question, which is whether the proposed ideal is a proper ideal, is about due to be relegated to someone's sociology thesis? Francis Woodbridge, Jr. '32.