REUNION IN NEW CAMBRIDGE

To the 325 members of the Class of 1907 who have registered at reunion headquarters, and to their families, those who remain in Cambridge extend a cordial welcome. For the next three days they wander about a Cambridge which bears little resemblance to the town of their undergraduate days,--a scene where masses of brick buildings, a faculty club, a geography building, a biological institute, a chapel, a vast library hedged by the latest Freshman dormitories; a business school; and seven Houses, three new and four revamped, have risen at a rate which has amazed even the steady inhabitants of the town.

These latter seven units will particularly excite the curiosity of the reunion visitors. The sight of panelled rooms, with private study and bath, telephone and shower; dining halls, and well-stocked libraries, prompts inevitably the liturgical refrain, "Why, when I was in college," and perhaps the queries: can the undergraduate afford this luxury? and has this House Plan benefited him?

The launching of the House Plan in the short space of 29 months was attended with error. The administration did not, like Yale, reserve a part of the gift money for endowment. It built too many expensive single rooms; in pursuance of the democratic ideal it wisely made fifth floor rooms as attractive as those below, but unfortunately not a few more expensive lower rooms consequently went untenanted. The University scarcely asked too much for what it offered; it simply launched the Plan on a scale of living which taxed the undergraduate pocketbook too severely. Fortunately, however, it has belatedly reduced excessively high food charges; and there is every prospect that during the summer the Corporation will respond to undergraduate pressure by reducing room rents.

These are, however, essentially minor, if pressing considerations. What the House Plan has really done for the undergraduate can best be understood by first of all forgetting the misunderstood and unfortunate phrase, "Harvard cross-section." The plan, for one thing, has aided the realization of the athletics-for-all policy, and has provided a broader life both for the undergraduate and for the Faculty, giving a certain unity to a hitherto amorphous body. President Lowell has been quoted to the effect that the plan was intended primarily to do for studies what the stadium and the band have 'one for athletics. The more frequent contact between student and tutor, between sophomore and senior; worth-while conversation in the dining halls; the establishment of discussion groups and Economic societies, stimulated by visiting speakers at House gatherings; the propinquity of House libraries, have lent themselves to an emphasis on academic work as the central task in hand. Harvard has changed physically; but those who value it for the intangible things that have made it famous, may feel assured that the House Plan in its chief influence is one of these.