The only possible solution at the present seems to be some sort of compromise by which the commuters could get special privileges one or two nights a week.

One-Third Once at Home

Approximately half of the commuters believe that they do not have a chance to participate equally in extra-curricular activities. Most admitted that there was very little that could be done about this, but a large number suggested that opening Dudley until 10 or 11 at night might give commuters more of a chance to take part in College activities. At present the Center is open from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. on weekdays, and from 8:30 to 1:30 on Saturdays.

Fischelis agrees that keeping the Center open later might prove helpful, but doubts that enough people would take advantage of the later hours to make the extra money spent on upkeep worthwhile. All Dudley expenses now are theoretically supposed to be paid from money collected by means of the $10 yearly membership fee--a fee which has not changed since the Center's founding in 1935.

Other complaints about Dudley are that it is too small, that it is too dirty, that it lacks office space for its eight tutors, that its recreational facilities are too few, and that its food is poor. All these are justified to a greater or lesser extant. Each one, however, would require a considerable expenditure on the part of the University, expenditures which it is just not willing or able to make.

Then Lush Houses

The problem of what to do about commuters was no problem at all up until the beginning of the House system. Before that time as many as one-third of all undergraduates lived at home, for Harvard made no great effort to get itself men from all over the nation.

Even those men who did come from other parts of the United States were not required to live in College dormitories and often stayed in boarding houses around the Square. The University was not concerned with making its students mingle together to rub off their provincialism.

The House Plan, with its emphasis on the mingling of all classes and types of Harvard students, changed all this. Commuters themselves looked with envy upon the luxurious Houses and the many activities which centered about them. They themselves had no common meeting-place at all, but, as Duhig writes in his report, "about that time the most hardy of the group (of commuters) began to eat lunches prepared at home in a basement room of Phillips Brooks House."

In a few years the PBH basement became so crowded that it was known as the "Black Hole." In the fall of 1934 dissatisfaction reached a new high, and a committee formed to investigate possibilities for a separate building for commuters alone. Hemenway Gymnasium was the committee's first choice, although it also considered Memorial Hall.

PBH Expels Commuters

The University was reluctant to spend money for such a center, but on March 26, 1935 the PBH governing board virtually forced it to by forbidding commuters further use of the building.

Twenty days later the University announced the gift of part of Dudley Hall as a commuters center. Donor of the then 38-year-old building, which had been closed for two years after serving as a freshman dormitory, was the late Allston Burr '89. Burr unfortunately did not provide money for upkeep, and the Center has been restricted by lack of endowment ever since.

Since its founding Dudley Hall has provided little in the way of excitement of controversy. Various plans for integration were proposed on and off before the war, but none gained official acceptance.

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