For years Harvard has recognized a responsibility to provide for the physical well-being of its undergraduates. The decision to admit an extra student depends less on the capacity of lecture halls and more on the ability of the University to provide housing, health care and an array of other services.

Harvard's responsibilities towards graduate students are a lot less defined, especially in regard to bread-and-butter issues. Events in past years have made the University increasingly aware that when it admits a graduate student, it admits someone who is financially independent of his or her parents. At issue behind day care at Harvard is the fact that when Harvard admits a graduate student, it very often is "admitting" a family.

When you have a child under age five and you work or attend school, you have three alternatives concerning care for the child. You can hire a full-time babysitter, leave the child home alone or find a day care center. Most Harvard graduate students and faculty--the bulk of day care "consumers"--find the last solution the most economically and morally feasible. It is the question of economic and moral responsibility for child care which is currently plaguing Harvard and those concerned with daily child care.

The entire question of day care is not really new. For years, it was scoffed at. Women were expected to stay home with their children, even when the children were in school. Women who wanted higher education were expected to still be model wives and mothers. The point here is not so much that women are mistreated as that planning is needed to provide for people whose lifestyles differ from the traditional American family way of life. Single parent families, families in which one parent is a student and the other must work to provide support, and those in which both parents need or wish to work cannot operate feasibly without the benefit of child care.

Over 250 children are currently attending six Harvard-related child care centers. Each of the centers makes a conscious effort to be much more than a babysitting service for the children.

Although Harvard provides space, heat and light for each of the centers, many students and teachers feel more help should be given to the schools and to students with children requiring day care. Although many people are pleased with present results, others are afraid to voice complaints since University repercussions might jeopardize present programs.

The Harvard-Radcliffe Day Care Council has attempted to coordinate day care efforts in the Harvard-Radcliffe community and act as a liaison between the University and the day care centers. The council's main functions are to bring together people from the different centers and to raise funds for each of the centers. Nevertheless, the council maintains an overriding attitude of plurality where the centers are concerned. Each center is administratively, economically and philosophically independent of all other centers and Harvard.

Harvard Yard Day Care Center is in many ways typical of Harvard child care operations. Located in the Vanserg Building, it is a second home for 35 children, between the ages of six months and five years, two-thirds of whom attend for the full day. The staff of eight consists of three full-time teachers, five part-time teachers, and several student teachers and volunteers from local colleges.

Since the program is a parent cooperative, organized by parents in June 1971, the parents are required to put in three hours per week in the classroom, as well as serve on committees.

The center has no written contract guaranteeing it the rooms it uses, but Jane Trumpy, director of the center, said that the verbal agreement which the school has with the Faculty of Arts and Sciences has had excellent consequences. The parents themselves built the school in the space provided by Harvard.

Philosophically, the center maintains a type of open classroom with "family grouping"--all age groups interacting together. Children engage in free play, then move to structured play in one of the different interest areas in the room. A music period, outdoor activity period and nap period are included in each day.

The center is rather unique in that it provides a group meeting for children after the outdoor activity period. In the meeting, children are encouraged to talk about what they are thinking, what they liked doing and what they would like to do in the future.

The Vanserg center is also rather distinctive in its emphasis on field trips and community-oriented projects. Besides the conventional trips to museums and aquariums, the group goes into the community to gather resources for its projects.

Financially, the school is similar to the other centers. Tuition for full-time infants is $155 a month; for pre-schoolers, $140 a month.

The International Day Care Center, 20 Sacramento Street, receives its utilities and space from Harvard's Afro-American Cultural Center. The basic precept of the center is to maintain a racial balance, with 50 per cent black children. Because the school wishes to maintain this racial balance, the $27 to $37 a week tuition will probably not be raised next year, according to director Brenda Brewington. Nevertheless, Brewington admits that salaries of staff are at about half that of public school teachers, a problem she attributes to high cost of child care.