The Cross Section

(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 with-held.)

To the Editor of the CRIMSON:

In the face of all the idealization of the glorious cross section plan for the Houses, perhaps a few considerations on the other side would not be amiss. There is another goal to strive for, which I believe is far more important. This is House personality. The aims of a cross section and of House personality are contradictory. If every House were to have the identical distribution of groups with equal proportions of all types, what chance would be left for House individualism? Little difference would remain, and this would be mostly physical. I am sure that no one wants the Houses to be reduced to more heaps of bricks and stone, some more decorative than others.

In addition, why should students of totally different interests and back-ground be forced upon one another, to the distaste of all concerned. Every one of the seven articles printed in the CRIMSON for the guidance of the Freshmen, admitted the existence of cliques in the House. This is definite evidence that college men will not have people whom they do not care for, thrust upon them as friends. A cross section would merely multiply the number of these cliques to the benefit of no one.

I felt hesitant about mentioning this last fact, but it is quite pertinent. In a college the size of Harvard there are, of course, certain individuals who fall within the class of the undesirable. A real cross section, according to the very meaning of the term, must include members of this class and admit them to the Houses. But the Houses do not have room for all. Some one has to be left out. Hence undesirables will have to be admitted to the exclusion of the more acceptable who make the large majority. J. R. Divens, Jr. '35.

(Ed Note: In answer to these criticisms the CRIMSON would only refer the writer to editorials published on the subject in these columns. There the will find it carefully explained that groups of friends will be allowed to enter the Houses under the new plan as before; further, that the Houses at present are alike except in financial and architectural details, very dubious basis for differentiation in membership, though they were undoubtedly the determining factor which caused several hundred Freshmen to stampede for Eliot House. If "corporate personality" is to develop it might have a firmer foundation than wash basins.

In regard to Mr. Divens' animadversions on undesirables, it is only necessary to remind the reader that sauce to the goose is not always sauce to the gander.)