Fifteen Alarm Boxes, Sprinklers, Janitors, and Telephones Protect University Against Blazes

Refusing to become excited over Saturday's minor conflagration on Mt. Auburn Street where nobody seemed to know the exact location of the nearest alarm box, Lehman Hall officials said yesterday that they would probably stand pat on their present platform of fire prevention and student fire education.

Harvard buildings from the incendiary view fall generally into three classes. First are those, like the Houses, which are fireproof. In the upper-class dormitories not only are there a large number of telephones, but also in each janitor's office is a map of Cambridge's 15 Harvard boxes, while the caretakers are themselves instructed in the fine points of ringing in an alarm.

The second group of buildings are the non-fireproof ones, which are equipped with sprinklers and automatic signals. Third class are the rooming houses, College or non-College owned, which lie south of Massachusetts Avenue.

From the University's standpoint student fire education does not necessarily mean public service. This is due to the perennial menace of the volunteer fireman who belongs to the inebriated or unique sense of humor category. Four extinguishers were refilled yesterday because of week-end activity by this group. Veritable chaos would undoubtedly result from false alarms were officials to make extensive additions to the present stock of boxes.

In any case the University has an exemplary fire record. Taking last year as an example, reports include one blaze of the Kirkland House dining hall awning, several bonfires in the streets, and a smudge fire in the Advocate Building. This last promised to be a real conflagration, as the structure is one of Cambridge's "naturals" among firetraps, but the engines arrived on time as usual, and nothing happened, causing mixed sentiments among the large crowd of students who had gathered to look on.