Masters Consider Extra House Vital

Seven Housemasters have joined in seeking the construction of at least one new upperclass House, as the College opens one of its most crowded years since World War II.

Upperclass rooms hold 40 percent more people than the number for which they were designed as the fall term opens this morning. Students are sleeping on daybeds and in bunks hurriedly moved into already crowded rooms.

In some cases, seniors have received permission to live outside the dormitories, even though they will not be living with relatives.

"One new House would relieve the present intolerable dormitory crowding," Charles H. Taylor, Master of Kirkland House, said last night. "Two new Houses would bring us closer to the normal size intended for our present facilities."

Administrative Lenieney

The Administrative Board is being more "lenient in considering petitions" by returning veterans and other undergraduates "with awfully good reasons" to live in apartments, in an effort to open spaces in the Houses, according to Leigh Hoadley, Master of Leverett House.

But painfully crowded conditions, University officials maintain, should improve in a few weeks. "We have no way of knowing in September how many men are returning," Elliott Perkins '28, Master of Lowell House and secretary of the Housemasters' Council, said last night. "But once we know how many men didn't show up, we can place the unassigned students in permanent quarters."

"One Permanent Solution"

"There is, however, only one really permanent solution to the overcrowding problem," according to Ronald M. Ferry '12, Master of Winthrop House, "and that is more dormitory space."

"And the sooner students and alumni can get the Administration to build a new House, the better," Rouben A. Brower, Master of Adams House, added.

But the Masters warned that the existence of another House might one day lead to larger classes which would crowd the new facilities. "It is our hope that two new Houses would take care of the increase in enrollment which President Pusey predicted last spring," Taylor said.