A Peek at the Houses

The Tenth House, when it is finally built, will not solve the problems of Harvard's House system. For years, the Houses have not provided any substantial intellectual supplement to the undergraduate's formal course work. By misrepresenting the Houses as the embodiment of President Lowell's ideal community, University Hall has preserved a myth which only disappoints those students who enter Houses with anticipation.

When Lowell established the House system in 1930, he had a sound conception of the role it should play within the College. Four years of college would be quite sterile, he argued, if the intellectual experiences provided came from courses and exams. By forming small units with resident tutors and a common dining room, Lowell hoped to widen the undergraduate's contacts with both students of other interests and the Faculty. Through these broader associations he expected the Houses to promote "a greater interest in things intellectual."

Unfortunately, the Houses today provide very little of what President Lowell sought. In a poll conducted a year ago, less than 30 per cent of the respondents felt the House was important to their academic-intellectual life. To a significant extent, intellectual contacts are not available. Tutors often remain together or stay in then rooms, and are inaccessible to the student. Nonresident tutors rarely appear in the dining halls, many coming only to the weekly staff luncheons. Recent efforts to expand House tutorials and seminars have been plagued by faculty and student indifference. Finally, students tend to stay in cliques rather than to take advantage of the heralded "diversification" within the Houses.

In part, the development of the University over the past two decades explains the failure of the potential of the Houses to realize Lowell's ambitions. Students have become increasingly specialized in their academic interests; they spend more time in Departments, libraries, and labs than they did in Lowell's era. The drain of undergraduate scientists, journalists, and artists into other parts of the University has seriously limited the variety of students in the Houses. As the Loeb has grown, for example, House drama societies have suffered, and so, as a result, have the Houses.

It is surprising that the conflict between the developments in the University and the goals of the Houses has left as much diversity as currently exists. Some Houses have achieved a sense of "community" while others remain impersonal. Students in two Houses find it very easy to meet the faculty and often express appreciation for the chance to dabble in fields outside their own. Members of several other Houses, however, claim they have never been able to find tutors to talk to. Several Houses are noted for a relaxed mixing among their students; others are split into very noticeable cliques.

The reasons for these differences are not incomprehensible. The Masters create the flavor of their Houses. Tutors and staff are picked by the Masters and can often be bullied by them into spending more time with the undergraduates. The Tenth House will make the problems of the Masters less demanding by cutting back overcrowding. Within the present system, however, the success of the Houses will depend to a great degree on the initiative of the Masters themselves.