GRADUATES IN THE HOUSES

Facing the fact that the present Freshman class is larger by one hundred and fifty men than the class of 1935, it is more than probable that the University authorities will consider reducing the number of graduate students residing in the Houses in order to make way for the incoming first-year men. But advisable as it is to provide rooms for the whole of the class of 1936, a reduction of graduate students in the Houses is not the best way of meeting the problem.

At present only five percent of the residents of the Houses, with the exception of Lowell, are graduates. Such of these men who have been resident in the House in their undergraduate days provide a spirit of continuity to the House Plan. They aid in incorporating the best of the House ideals into the new members, and lend an air of maturity, perhaps intellectuality, to House functions. The graduate's outlook, backed by college experience here or abroad, is bound to be interesting to the undergraduate. Contacts between graduate and undergraduate are a palliative for the frequent failure of the tutors in making many personal contacts with the students.

To those who are economically minded, a still greater benefit accrues to a House because of the residence therein of graduates. Most of these men occupy higher priced rooms, and thus enable the House to dispose of some of those suites which would otherwise remain vacant, for the fact that a man can afford to continue his studies is usually indicative of his being able to pay well for his accommodations. It is doubtful whether the larger Freshman class would be able to use the higher priced rooms.

The original enlargement of this particular class for economic reasons was unsound, and to make the House Plan suffer through the withdrawal of the graduates and their contribution toward maturity and continuity would be to condone a very questionable practice. University authorities must find some other solution than that of a drastic limitation of the graduate students in the Houses on order to enable the Freshman class to migrate en masse next year to the realm of Georgian facades and Moorish domes.