ELECTING THE STUDENT COUNCIL

The House Plan puts Sophomores, Juniors and Seniors into the same dormitories, thus breaking up class lines. Houses, not classes, are the units of Harvard College. Members of the Student Council, however, are elected on the basis of class, not House, representation.

To some extent this method of electing representatives is equitable, for it keeps the Council from being dominated by the more numerous Sophomores and Juniors; but it also contradicts the spirit of the House Plan, under which each unit logically should have an equal number of members on the Council. The way in which the Council is elected constitutes a matter of little practical importance, since things have always worked out so that each House was adequately represented; but this is no assurance that elections will always turn out thus. Under the present system, although every House must have at least one representative, it is conceivable that one House might have a very popular group which would comprise the greater part of the Student Council. Unlikely as this contingency is, the spirit of the House Plan is manifestly violated by the present method of electing the Student Council.

Since the Houses are the real units of the College, it would seem desirable to do away with the election of the Council by classes and to institute a system under which each House would elect Seniors, Juniors and Sophomores in proportion to the number of students in the House. Men who live outside of the College could be affiliated with Phillips Brooks House for the purpose of electing representatives. A Council chosen on this basis would be an organic expression of the House Plan. It might well fulfill the functions performed by an Intra-fraternity Board in many colleges. Election by Houses would bring the Council under the House Plan and add to its possibilities for usefulness by making it more truly representative of Harvard as it is today.