NOT TO EAT

When Phillips Brooks House established a lunch-room for commuters last year, a problem of long-standing duration seemed solved. Now the very popularity of the lunch-room has given rise to problems that may require its being discontinued.

Phillips Brooks House undertook the project voluntarily, for the convenience of the commuters, providing wholesome food at reasonable prices, so that nearly three hundred students a day have availed themselves of the lunch-room's facilities. Yet the lunch-room, necessarily established on a small scale, can comfortably accommodate hardly half that number. Such a condition of rushing and overcrowding has developed that the health, if not the sanitary, standards have been lowered to a dangerous level. Lodged in a poorly-lighted and poorly-ventilated basement, with no possible room for expansion, the Phillips Brooks House lunch-room has become woefully inadequate.

Unquestionably it is the province of the University to provide eating accommodations for the commuting students. The economy and convenience afforded by the present lunch-room, in spite of its recent disadvantages, bear out the desirability of a project of this nature. Since the Brooks House lunch-room can not be enlarged, it is imperative that a new location be established. It has been suggested that the large yellow house in the south-east corner of the Yard, formerly occupied by Professor Palmer, be converted into a new lunch-room for commuters. Another suggestion would reestablish Memorial Hall as the commons restaurant. The Phillips Brooks House Association would continue supervision of a commuters' lunch-room if a suitable location were made available. Over-crowding conditions in the present lunch-room make its continuation impossible, and the University is faced with the problem of providing adequate facilities for commuters.