Tick-Tock

Eleven is a silly hour.

It is the hour when students and their dates must leave the Houses tonight, to seek an hour or two of entertainment before the girl must return to her dormitory.

But the rule can be changed, and perhaps this week it will be. The Masters meet Wednesday, and they will have before them a resolution urging that parietals be extended until twelve on Saturday. They should accept the suggestion.

The principle of mature entertainment in the room is accepted by the Administration, but somehow a magical aura has attached to eleven as the final hour. Some of the conservatism is perfectly logical; those who think parietal hours are a Bad Thing will fight any extension at all. The only justification offered for mystical eleven is that roomates would be inconvenienced by an extension of the hours.

A few probably would be, but the Saturday night devotee of the House library could probably adjust himself to staying until it closes, and then patronize one of Cambridge's excellent food or drink shops until midnight. But essentially this is a problem for roommates to work out among themselves, and it could be done as easily for midnight parietals as it now is for eleven.

The Masters should see the pointlessness of the eleven p.m. hour, which was a Student Council idea originally, and extend Saturday room permission until midnight.

And if they are in a benevolent mood, there are two more anomalies in the system which the Masters could clear up while they're at it.

The most obvious is the rule that young men and women must attend House dances or get out of the House at eight or eight-thirty on numerous Saturdays. The vested interest which defends this imposition, the House Dance Committee, could do well to make their affairs sufficiently attractive so that a non-captive group might patronize them. If House Dances are popular, they could make money on a voluntary basis. If they are unpopular but are still deemed worthy of existence, perhaps some Dance Studio or finishing school could subsidize them. As it is the rule makes them intolerably crowded and drives those who object to hordes of dancers in search of more expensive entertainment.

A more serious argument suggests that during football season drinking begins during or right after a game, and that to permit it to continue past the start of a House dance would be to risk numerous wrecked autos between Cambridge and Wellesley. There is a slight risk of this, but persons inclined to drink can now find places to booze until midnight, and no similarly disastrous results appear for parties held at other times of the year, or even on occasions like Spring Weekends, where drinking goes on, though not in rooms, from early afternoon until the liquor runs out.

Finally, the one-to-four hours during the week should be restored, for they constitute neither inconvenience nor immorality, and would permit an unbroken afternoon of relaxed studying.

The Masters could get quite a lot of good work done this Wednesday.