Lowell Attempts to Represent College Without Molding Student to Set Pattern

Lowell House has been typed in the past as the house of the scholar. But recently when the honorary John Harvard scholarships were awarded, three other Houses received approximately the same number as Lowell did. Although such a superficial analysis is not a fair test of a House's reputed intellectual superiority, it does point to the fact that a House, especially Lowell, cannot be typed.

As Master Elliott Perkins '23 recently said, Lowell attempts to represent the entire College. Yet it does not try to mold its students to any pattern. If the House has any predominant character, it is individualism.

While most House dances draw a good crowd, Lowell's library is frequently filled on Saturday nights. Few members worry about any stigma attached to being dateless over a weekend.

And if other Houses take intramural athletics more seriously, it is only because Lowell men accept sports as just another part of the Hose program. "Few men are willing to die for the House over at Soldiers Field, but most think kindly of it after graduation," Perkins says.

Physically Lowell is the most beautiful House on campus. Its large and small courtyards are dominated by a massive belltower harboring the major threat to Sunday quiet along the river front. But even when the large Russian bells shatter the air at 12:30 p.m. few residents are disturbed. They merely flock to the dining hall and create the longest line of the week.

Under distinctive chandeliers, housemembers eat food supplied from the central kitchen. Some few form cliques, but by the end of the sophomore year, most people mix at the tables no matter what their previous background. Tutors are friendly during meals but do not make a special effort to sit with students. Traditionally, Master Perkins holds High Table every Monday evening. Then about a dozen seniors eat with tutors and other guests in the scholarly ranks on a raised platform at one end of the dining hall.

The annual Christmas dinner is another House tradition. Perkins lighted Lowell's Yule log this year and starred in a strictly for-men-only play. Last Saturday the House held a formal dinner-dance in honor of its silver anniversary. A new Yule log may be sitting in the fireplace waiting for another Christmas, but life in Lowell goes along unperturbed.

Placards announcing another House committee election will be plastered on the dining room doors in the winter, and after election few will think about the committee again. A Lowell House tie with three crossed arrows will be posted on the bulletin board, and few will buy it. Housemembers just don't seem to care about the tie. Lowell means other things to them.

Where There's Room

Lowell House has the following rooms available for next year: four singles ($275-320); 30 doubles ($90-275); 21 triples ($100-205); and eight quadruples ($140-195).