STUDENT WAITERS

Higher costs of living in the Houses, together with depression-struck family incomes have made the University desideratum of including men of all financial means an end still more difficult to achieve. Scholarships and aids, it is well known, are not yet large enough to enable the poor student to look forward with assurance to a Harvard education. With conditions as they are, more jobs are needed to enable students to remain in college; this need could be met in part by, the introduction of student waiters into the Houses.

The opening of House dining halls has taken much business from restaurants on the square and has reduced the number of outside jobs available by thirty per cent. At the same time, the employment office has had to meet the demands of a still larger number of students who need work in order to stay at college.

Until three years ago, the charge of the inefficiency of student waiters was a valid one. But since then, with a careful method of selection and a plan for reducing the rate of turnover, the waiters in the Freshman Halls have proved that they can be as efficient as professional waitresses. The objection that social discrimination against the students might result has been shown, by experience with the Freshman and Business School dining halls, not to be a formidable one. This possible danger might be in large measure obviated if students were employed in Houses of which they were not members.

The University may claim, and with sufficient theoretical justification, that it is not its responsibility to provide subsistence for students who cannot afford the "luxury" of a Harvard education. But when the choice must be made between a less elegant dining-room service and the loss of a great number of able students, there can be no doubt as to which alternative should be taken.