Bored?

Part of the Union Dining Hall, a small annex with a comparatively low ceiling has an inordinate attraction for a certain group of Yardlings. This is the butter-slinging group. Frustrated by the Lilly heights of the main dining room, the bored members of the butter-slingers search for less formidable distances, and numerous grease spots on the annex ceiling testify to their ingenuity in providing their own diversion.

One must view this display of young animal spirits with sympathy and understanding. Even the most industrious students need relaxation, and the Union management to date has supplied only ping-pong tables, inexpensive dances, discussion groups, bridge, chess, music, and stamp clubs, opportunity to create a Yardling publication, and a debating society. Students have stayed away in droves from these pedestrian activities in favor of the obviously superior sport and excitement of springing butter from a knife onto a convenient ceiling.

This attitude would be completely understandable if the demands for the ping-pong tables, the various clubs, and most particularly the dances, had not come from the students themselves. They complained, for instance, of the expense of Saturday night dates in the metropolitan area, so the Union provided two dances, including orchestra, refreshments, and entertainment for two dollars. Out of 1,400 Yardlings, 114 showed up at the first dance, and 134 at the second, and only a handful from the dormitory that had been the center of pre-dance agitation. Some attributed the poor attendance to the difficulty of discovering suitable dates, but in Cambridge such difficulty stems from lack of industry rather than from lack of opportunity.

The same story of demand, supply, and no consumption holds true straight down the list of Freshman activities. In nearly all cases, the actual turnout for the various clubs was from ten to twenty percent of the number that had indicated, on special cards, interest in participation. The ping-pong tables asked for by students, stand unused most of the time. Of the 300 who showed interest in discussion groups, nine showed up for discussions. Nevertheless, the Union management goes ahead with plans that include a music room, to be open within a week, a photography room, more and perhaps even cheaper dances, the clubs, and a weekly showing of movies from the University's film library. This is an all-out effort to save the annex ceiling further greasing.