1-1-2 AND ALL THAT

To the Editors of The Crimson:

Charlie Shepard's little improvisation on the 1-1-2 housing proposal (Crimson, October 16) takes off from the wholly erroneous "fact" that the plan intends to group sophomores in the Yard by concentration. As co-author of the plan, I can assure you that no one has suggested any such thing. Mr. Shepard's assumption has about as much reality as his confident assertion that "no one in the Quad Houses likes the system because it would do away with North, South and Currier Houses." He might have consulted those numerous undergraduates who were assigned to the Quad against their wishes, or the considerable number who, once assigned, have requested a change of residence.

It will doubtless amuse (though not surprise) seasoned Crimson readers to know that the paper roasted the House system idea in a series of editorials in November, 1928, when the House Plan was announced. Its argument then, as now, was that the system would interfere with student self-determination: "the student will be led, through the very structure of the college, into contacts which the college deems good for him, instead of being allowed complete freedom to establish or repudiate those contacts in accordance with his own desires."

President Lowell took the Crimson's disapproval for what it was worth. "That/the House Plan/...would meet with opposition was certain," he wrote, "for that has been true of every advance Harvard College has ever made...Strange rumors float about, and the less solid they are the lighter and easier they float. Some people seem to think that the student is to be chained in a galley and fed with a spoon."

This is not the place to engage in a serious discussion of the 1-1-2 proposal. But I would like to respond to the one substantive charge leveled in the article: that it represents social engineering. The truth is that 1-1-2 is the only new plan under consideration that retains student choice in House assignments. It might be borne in mind that at present between a quarter and a third of the sophomore class is living outside of the Houses on the basis of no rationale other than the need for housing of some kind. And it might also be recalled that the mounting unpopularity of the Quad Houses is what precipitated the discussion of housing alternatives in the first place. Phyllis Keller   Assistant Dean of the Faculty