Three Masters Criticize Use of IBM Distribution System

Almost no possibility exists that the University will adopt the IBM machine system Yale began employing this year for the distribution of freshmen into the houses, four masters agreed yesterday.

"Three is too much turning over a human responsibility to machine," Elliott Perkins '23, Master of Lowell House and Secretary of the Master's Council argued, "and I hope the University will continue to have men make their own decisions and stand by them."

Like the other Masters, Perkins emphasized the element of freedom of choice, which the IBM machine would eliminate. "I deprecate this thing of taking question out of the human free will, and putting them into something you operate by punching buttons," he added.

Perkins sharply criticized Yale's new program. "You cannot do anything like this by lot," he stated. "The machine would not even the distribution at any given time, anyway. We think that the system would not work at Harvard, but are glad to have Yale experiment," he said.

Archibald MacLeish '19, acting master of Eliot House and a Fellow of Davenport College at Yale, also attacked the IBM method, which was instituted where 80 percent of the freshman class applied to two of the colleges.

Freedom of Chance

"They went far too far," he said. "The very least you can do is to try to give freshmen as much freedom of choice as possible."

Leigh Hoadley, master of Leverett House, pointed out that in the University the Houses plan an important academic role, in contrast to Yale. Since men often choose a House for a particular tutor here, an IBM machine could never work, he added.