Four O'Clock Jump

It's a long walk from Dunster or Eliot House to Lamont at four in the morning. More undergraduates than ever are taking the walk this week, for the 75-cent tariff imposed by library officialdom on books returned late puts a high premium on mid-morning sleep.

If a man takes a book out of the library at closing time and studies until the not-so-small hours--as most have to do now--he can't get up for the nine o'clock check-in and still get his sleep. The Library might well put book boxes in all the Houses where people could leave volumes to be picked up by messengers in the morning.

Lamont officials already are paying messengers to make the rounds--they say the fees go mainly for salary. It would be less expensive to send boys to a few places than to many rooms. Such a scheme was once tried and abandoned, but before the days of the six-bit fine. There would certainly be cooperation now, and fewer men would keep books in their rooms if the return was easier. Taking books back to Lamont just before dawn may be a small task, but it is a painful one in rain, snow or cold. The Student Council could do a lot of students a small good turn by working out some financially cooperative system with Lamont officials who might be reluctant to undertake the project all by themselves.