A House Can Be A Home

With an annoying persistency, the subject of parictal rules each year rises from the morass of College regulations like an evil genie to bedevil Housemasters and students alike. Rules, like babies constantly need changing--or so some people think. Yet, despite the absurd quibbles about giving an hour here and taking one there, one suggestion stands out among the many as sociological rather than mathematical.

Radcliffe, Wellesley, Simmons, Jackson, Wheaton, and most other women's colleges set a one o'clock deadline for their students. It is virtually impossible for an undergraduate to announce at eleven o'clock, "Well, time to go home now." His alternative is to seek some new diversion for the remaining two hours.

The Housemasters granted the privilege of entertaining women in the Houses on Saturday until eleven because they reasoned that the extension would relieve a strain on the student's pocketbook and provide an alternative to elbowing through Cronin's or parking on Storrow Drive. The change has improved conditions, but it has not provided a real solution.

The most apparent resolution to the situation is extension of the deadline to midnight. Such an extension would allow the student to enjoy the comfort and parsimony of his room and, at the same time, allow time to get a girl home.

The most popular objections to lifting the eleven o'clock deadline have been academic and moral. Roommates, the argument goes, would be irresistably drawn from the House libraries to their rooms and would be placed under intolerable psychological strain, seeking culture or sleep with only one wall separating them from their roommate's date.

More likely, Boston eyebrows would rise if Harvard extended the rules to the witching hour. Considering that the women's colleges have already allowed their girls out until one, however, this thesis seems somewhat far-fetched. As a matter of fact, the banner of propriety might fly higher if activity were confined to students' rooms. Anyone who has left Cronin's at eleven-thirty and driven along Storrow Drive to Wellesley would almost certainly suspect that the best interests of propriety might be served by allowing students to remain in their rooms.