For a time the Central Committee bludgeoned masters with entreaties of "play fair," but the complete lack of fixed rules and the annual difficulties produced by flexible distribution gave way eventually to the present 70% method. Rather than have complete free choice or complete distribution, the masters settled on the compromise plan of permitting each House to fill 70% of its quota with first choice applicants. The remainder of the space would have to be filled with second and third choice applicants sent along from those not accepted by the first choice House. As is witnessed by several Houses today, this method is far from fool-proof in avoiding preponderance of students with similar backgrounds and interests from congregating in the same House.
Compulsory Membership
If the House plan was to work fully, it was perhaps inevitable that compulsory House membership would eventually be instituted. In 1941, President Conant summoned the graduate presidents of the final clubs and told them that within a year House membership would be a requirement for all undergraduates. Justification for the move had been a College survey that showed a shocking difference in grades between the 50-odd men still living piled on top of each other in the remaining "rat houses" along Mt. Auburn and students in the Houses.
If there ever was a peak to the House Plan it probably came in 1940. Under Adolph Samborski intramural athletics had graduated to an organized program from the informality insisted upon by masters in the opening years.
Eliot Perkins, master of Lowell, says that in its last year under Coolidge in 1940 his House reached its perfect state. With 100 less students than at present, each senior knew each other senior if not on a social level on an intellectual one. Social distinctions were at a minimum within the House and had been replaced by a congenial friendship among men of varying backgrounds. That situation has now somewhat deteriorated. A junior in the House recently remarked that there are not eight other students in the building he knew or liked well enough to sit down to a meal with. As a Lowell House tutor recently noted on viewing the consistent separate eating groups in the dining hall, "the white lines aren't on the floor but you can tell right where they ought to be painted."
War Halted Tutorial
The war had more than a temporarily paralyzing effect. It produced the veteran's attitude of "to hell with everything but a degree." And it produced the more permanent prospect of 1,000 additional undergraduates. The veterans had no time to meet and discuss with other students and tutors. Tutorial, abolished during the war, could not withstand post-war indifference and crowding, and gave way to an advisory system. In view of Lowell's motives in founding the Houses, the move in retrospect seems almost unaccountable.
Reinstated following the 77 page Bender Report in November of 1950, tutorial is yet to receive the enthusiastic backing it once had. Indifference toward the tutorial system, which constitutes the heart of the educational aspect of the Houses, seems especially apparent in the fields of English and Economics, where department leaders have failed to give the necessary enthusiastic backing to the plan. In general, as long as advancement is based entirely upon scholarship, and little or no credit is given to men for the time spent in carrying out the duties of a good tutor, tutorial has a small chance of succeeding.
The University itself has not helped the full return of tutorial in depriving tutors of free lunch meals in their Houses. Dean Bender, an ardent supporter of tutorial, has said if he had ten million dollars to sink into any one project at the present time, he would unhesitatingly choose to use it to bolster tutorial.
Perhaps the major advancement of the House Plan since the war has been the incorporation of the assistant deans into the Houses in the role of Senior Tutors. Also recommended by the Bender Report, this move has recharterized the dean's office in a less impersonal light and given each House a real autonomy. The question again is: will the men involved receive due credit and advancement even though they spend half their time on administrative problems?
In the meantime, the spectre of increased growth lies ever before the system and must be faced. In opposition to the belief that Harvard must expand to maintain its national character is the argument that the college has a deeper primary obligation to undergraduates to turn out a quality product. The House Plan is a vital link in producing such a product.
What is needed is not only an eighth House but a ninth House to take care of the additional 1,000 students added since President Lowell and Harkness initiated the Plan.
On Mt. Auburn St. stands Claverly Hall. It is a visible reminder that the issue of subdividing Harvard is far from entirely settled. Before money can be raised to build additional units, the President and administration have got to come out openly in favor of at least one more House. Rumor is that Pusey is now moving in such a direction. A fine site and possible location for one unit is the land now used by the Hygiene Building. Another might be the land beneath Claverly.
To the average indifferent Harvard undergraduate it makes small difference whether he lives in crowded conditions or not. The history of subdivision is dotted with many ideals, less fulfillments. To the administrator and educator if should be clear that the potential of the House Plan is yet to be reached