Give and Take: III

The defenders of thirteenth-century scholasticism have found their last stronghold in the modern western world. The administration of Harvard College, renouncing all such poppy-cock as "diversity" and "individualism," has reached back to St. Thomas for the rationale behind the recent change in parietal rules. Unity shall henceforth be the watchword of the Dean's Office.

This surge of reaction came to light recently when the administration attempted to justify its lopping off the hours from 1 to 4 as a period when students could entertain a women in one's room. Any red-blooded Harvard student, University Hall believes, spends the hours from 1 to 4 messing around in the laboratory, studying in the library, or rushing about furiously in some form of athletic endeavor. No normal male should even think of seeking female companionship at that time of day.

Now this idea of a day carefully apportioned into near little sections each reserved for a certain type of activity is at best a feeble rationalization of the new parietal rules, and at worst an insincere one. Harvard men lead notoriously irregular lives, and it is not for the Dean's Office to work them into a pattern by which at a given hour all will troop off together to the Blockhouse or Lamont. Harvard men play hockey at 7:30 in the morning and squash at 10 at night. They study until 3 in the morning and they sleep until noon. Some of them get up at 6 a.m. and study all morning. In any case, a student's personal habits are no concern of the Dean's Office until he begins to slip academically.

The administration and the Student Council point out that very few students now avail themselves of the hours from 1 to 4 for entertaining women. This is all the more reason for keeping that time of day free for women to enter the Houses. Many of those students who study, talk, or listen to records with women early in the afternoon do so because their own particular schedules prevent them from doing so conveniently at any other time. The few women who come into the Houses at that period cause no disturbance to other students and could hardly be thought of as a disruptive influence. Perhaps the Dean's Office, in its concern for the peace and quiet of other students, is listening too intently for the patter of little feet.