LOWELL HOUSE

It is a stoutly contested but felicitous quotation which holds that "Those men who select Dunster House are social climbers, those who elect Eliot have already arrived, and those who choose Lowell don't give a hoot." The tone of the article composed for this morning's CRIMSON by Lowell's House Committee Chairman should serve to establish, in this respect, the attitude of at least a large number of his fellow Housemembers. The continual emphasis upon physical assets rather than upon social glories is only natural. But it fails to give the whole picture.

Most apparent is the failure to indicate the part played by Professor Coolidge in his effort to develop the Lowell House "corporate personality." That effort is everywhere patent; there is the High Table and the sedulous recognition by note of scholastic success or failure; there are the visits to sick Housemembers at Stillman and the erratic little speeches about Lowell Traditions. The Master's paternalism has evoked much criticism from cynical outsiders and startled, new-fledged Sophomores. But older Housemembers have discovered that House Spirit remains nonetheless comfortably distant, have looked more closely to the source of the attentions, and have found them pleasant, or at the least, innocuous.

Perhaps a little less obvious is the failure to include a description of the prevailing intellectual atmosphere of the unit. Not entirely by accident, Lowell House has become largely a center for serious scholastic endeavor. There is an air of profundity hovering over the lamb and mint sauce, an air of correctness about the entertainments. One finds it difficult to fancy the prim and stainless chandeliers of that sunny dining room jangling to the raucous laughter of a "Shoemaker's Holiday." Men of Lowell find their pleasure in musicales and staid comedies.

In estimating the value of the article's comments on the Lowell Bells, one should, first of all, note the brevity of the remark and secondly the noncommital nature of the adjectives. Matters "unique, interesting, and sometimes amusing," have not rarely led to a thoroughgoing revolution.

Accompanied by these few grains of salt, the article in question is a complete and detailed catalogue of Lowell's assets.