Quincy Gets Master at Inaugural Dinner

With the balance between seriousness and social conviviality that supposedly went into its architecture, Quincy House formally opened last night.

The 387 guests, tutors, and students heard President Pusey in his main address, trace the history of the House system, and then describe the essence of the residential Houses.

"A House is essentially a way of life," the President said, citing President Lowell's hope that a House would become "a social device for a moral purpose." Pusey said a House means "a group of free men who come to live together in a higher purpose than their normal, workaday lives.... This atmosphere can be created only in the Houses."

The President emphasized that "only as the Houses flourish can Harvard College be preserved and live again." He added that beginning this year the Masters will sign the diplomas of the seniors in their respective Houses.

The occasion was not without its lighter moments. After the President had remarked there exist no symbols of a Master's office, newly-inaugurated John M. Bullitt '43 turned to the mural behind him and said: "We are surrounded by symbolisms." He quoted another Master as calling the painting "the death and transfiguration of a Chevrolet."

Architect Henry R. Shepley '10 opened his speech by scorning the microphone, saying the acoustics of the dining room were designed very carefully and such devices were unnecessary.

The official representative of the Josiah Quincy family, Mark deW. Howe '28, professor of Law, said his grandfather really meant no more to him than to the audience, and he might just as well "talk about Adam."