Play the Host

This Friday well over a hundred Princeton football and soccer players will arrive in Cambridge to dig in for the weekend, but no representative of their hosts will meet them, see that admission is provided at the dances, or even assure decent living quarters. Among traditional rivals, who are supposed to be friendly ones, it does seem strange that such a neglect of the amenities exists.

Still stranger, the situation is purely one-sided. Princeton has its Orange Key Society, Dartmouth its Green Key, and so on through the Ivy League schools, to solve just this problem. The Key organizations, partly honorary and partly functional societies, send representatives to meet the teams at the train, to guide them to their hotel or dormitory, and in general to see that they are taken care of throughout the weekend. At some of the colleges, the society provides tickets for any current dance or festivity, and at all of them it makes sure that the visitors can get into a dance, even if it has to be at the guests' expense.

Harvard's present disorganization was made clear during last year's Yale weekend. The manager of the Yale football team wrote to the Harvard manager asking that the players have admission to the Saturday evening dances. But the manager had little time from his other duties, and the dances were already sold out.

No Key Society is needed here. A three- or fourman committee, perhaps working with the Student council, could fill the need. Working closely with the House dance committees, the managers of the teams, and hotels and College temporary housing officials, it would be able to coordinate the plans of all parties, and see that the best hospitality is given to Harvard's visiting firemen.