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THE PRESS

Hotels and Dormitories

Harvard students are to have a new dormitory hotel called the Varsity, privately owned and operated, to be erected at a cost approaching $400,000. The new building will have elevators, showers in each suite, and all the trimmings. Porters and servants will be at the service of the occupants, and maids and bell-boys will be available at all times.

The erection of such a building affiliated with an educational institution once more confirms the assertion of thousands of non-college people today that college students are becoming "soft".

The present educational system teaches us to believe that we are mentally healthy, wealthy and prosperous. The dormitory system is often very indicative of this, although one could not justly claim this true of Middlebury. A. Barton Hepburn had a very far sighted conception when he refused to give a marble Hepburn Hall. It was the first permanent Middlebury structure to be made of anything but marble. He had, perhaps, a subtle thought that youth should not all be entertained, beyond comfort and necessity. Hepburn is an ideal dormitory. If includes the essential comforts, is convenient in every way, but is not extravagant.

For any college or university to permit the erection of a "hotel" to be used by students is surely outstepping the original and fundamental purpose of education. The Middlebury Campus

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