Gym Jam

With only five class-packed days in which to get three sweat-packed athletic credits, the Harvard Freshman is hard put to find time for both studies and sports. Unable to accommodate a grueling scholastic pace to a time consuming P. T. schedule, the new student is often faced with the unhappy choice of taking either the frying part or the fire, and discovers that the wrath of the Freshman Dean is just as uncomfortable as the displeasure of our steelsinewed Athletic Department.

An informal survey shows that the present system chops an average four and one-half hours out of students' weekday study schedules and that in many cases their grades are bearing the burnt of the loss. Overtaxed facilities throughout the college, the difficult conversion from high school to college studies, and the general problems encountered in any change of schools, all cause her new student sufficient worry without the Athletic Department claiming three afternoons out of his already busy week.

While it is traditional Faculty policy to launch new students into the circle of undergraduate captivities through Compulsory Athletics, the present P. T. system works at cross purposes to that end. Freshmen dividing their time between studies and a lengthy wait for athletic credits have little time left for extracurricular interests. Our socially minded Athletic Department has the novel experience of seeing its left hand erase what its right hand has written.

As it stands the P. T. system does not give students enough time to fulfill their requirements, but if the athletic week were increased from five days to seven, by opening the gym and the squash courts on Saturday afternoons and on Sundays, Freshmen would be able to worry about their studies during the week and their social contacts during the weekend. A loss of sixty cents per athletic ticket and the additional cost of extra men to staff the buildings over the weekend would be a cheap price for the comfortably solvent H.A.A.to pay if it bought Freshmen peace of mind and made something worthwhile out of the Athletic Department. Long lines of hang-dog Freshmen daily pacing the Phys. Ed. Department's carpet for failure to become acquainted with their fellow students are reason enough to spread the load for greater efficiency.