That Curfew Shall Not Ring

Recalling that Harvard is not a co-educational institution, the House Masters recently turned down a Student Council request to have the time of House exodus for women extended by an hour. Neither the masters nor the Council members are dealing with realities: the Masters because they consider official recognition of student social life a heinous step toward co-education, and the Council members because their proposal was hardly an attempt to alleviate the social difficulties caused by the lack of, and the failure to use, University facilities.

The fact stands, and would stand even had the Council suggestion been accepted, that nearly the entire social life of an undergraduate lies within the limits of his imagination and his bank account. A couple with a half-hour to kill must kill it either expensively or uncomfortably, while a student with a yen for dancing is confronted with inflationary Boston prices. Lack of University facilities for recreation can be completely written off only when and if a War Memorial Student Activities Center is built, complete with lounge and dancing space. But interim measures much more effective than the Council proposal can easily be taken.

A move in the right direction has been made by Lowell House, whose common room remains open for guests until midnight on Saturdays. The ideal extension of this use of common rooms to all Houses and on all nights of the week would rob the rooms of their primordial function as a center for gregarious bachelors. But a rotating system, with the common rooms of each of the seven Houses open in turn until midnight, would provide a satisfactory solution from all angles. From the point of view of co-education, there can be no qualms concerning this proposal. Exactly such a system operates at Radcliffe, and nobody has accused that institution of having co-educational tendencies. And from the point of view of economy and convenience for students, the advantages would be particularly welcome in these days of high living costs and stretched GI allowances.