In 1682, a Spanish-born Harvard student who later rocketed to fame as one of the great early 20th century philosophers, arrived at Harvard to find his "first room, on the ground floor in the northeast corner of Hollis, was one of the cheapest to be had in Cambridge: the rent was forty-four dollars a year. I had put it first for that reason on my list of rooms, and got my first choice. It was so cheap because it had no bedroom, no water, and no heating..."

George S. Santayana, Class of 1886, was to live in conditions not much better than this for his entire four years at Harvard. His situation was not uncommon for a significant portion of Harvard undergraduates at that time. They ate, drank, slept and studied cheaply.

But there were those who lived the good life as Harvard undergraduates. In turn of the century Harvard, those who were not compelled by finances to live as Santayana did, found more suitable private accommodations in a fairly grand style at the clubs or in apartments along Mount Auburn Street.

These "Gold Coast" apartments, which were to become Adams House, Claverly Hall, and Apley Court, were the most desirable homes for any well-to-do undergraduate. Theodore Roosevelt. Class of 1880, originally housed with the "regular" Harvard students in the Yard, soon left for the exclusivity of the "Gold Coast," because he felt the ill-mannered, poor boys of the Yard dorms drank too much and partied too often.

The Gold Coast, home for those members of high society who could afford it, was exclusive indeed. Its residents generally had their own maids or butlers and in some cases brought their own cooks--if they chose not to dine at a final club.

The name Gold Coast indicated this pre-existence. As John H. Finch '25, professor of Class and master of Eliot House for 26 years, recounts, "The fashion tended to be on the Gold Coast--this included even frequenting separate eating places from the poor boys."

This very elitist existence of the well-born couldn't last. The years following World War I saw an influx of students that forced the University, under President A. Lawrence Lowell, Class of 1877, to look for a new way of housing undergraduates. And it was approximately 50 years ago that the concept of divying up undergraduates into residential Houses was dangled before Lowell. It was a concept that still persists, and the merits of which are still debated.

The House plan was in the tradition of the English system at Oxford--a small House community was set up to counter any feelings of impersonalization and alienation created by increased numbers of students. Less voiced, but easily as significant a reason for creating a House system, was a desire to reduce the tremendous social division between the occupants of the Gold Coast, and those living in the Yard.

It was a $13 million gift from a disgruntled Yalie--he had offered to fund a Houses system at Yale but had been turned down by the faculty there--in 1926 that allowed Lowell to pull the residential House plan from his top drawer and present it to the faculty as a fait accompli. Not, however, without much opposition. In addition to alumni, the decision produced an uproar among clubbies who had no desire to lose their exclusive status or to live in a heterogeneous situation. Lowell found himself walking a tight political line: he said he wasn't out to destroy the club system and social amenities as they were then practiced. He told a group of alumni in 1929. "The policy of Harvard for a score of years has been leading up to this result: to abolish social segregation on the Gold Coast.

To an extent, Lowell's predictions were correct: the Gold Coast was swallowed up into the Harvard Houses, but clubbies and the remnants of high society still remain as separate groups in the Houses. Traditions of social distinction still live on, even if in diluted form: witness Lowell House high table dinners.

When begun in 1929, the institution of high table dinners--which literally were eaten at a table elevated above the rest of the dining room--brought the President, distinguished guests and faculty to Lowell to sup in dinner jackets and starched shirts. The event came under heavy fire from students as being "grotesquely ridiculous," "an undemocratic display of starched laundry," and "one of the most forced and misplaced institutions ever established at Harvard." But the master at that time, Julian L. Coolidge, Class of 1895, who had been an opponent of the democratizing efforts of the House system, saw high table as a way to keep the hoi-pollai in line.

Lowell still has a high table in its dining room and though it is a remnant of older, more elitist days, approximately twice a month a group of seniors, House associates and faculty get together for dinner apart from the rest of the House. No longer exclusive, the tradition nonetheless remains.

Eventually the Houses came to be an accepted part of the routine of Harvard life if only out of financial necessity for an increased number of students. People, Finley said, "saw that the Houses were going to be places originally not crowded, and done in real style. Meals were served by waitresses and it was really quite grand." If getting into a particular House makes a difference now, then it made one's social world.

However, though the question often arose as to whether the Houses were performing the function for which they were originated, until the late 1950s no heavy indictments were leveled at the Houses. Finley termed the '50s a "very, very happy period. Nobody ever failed to get into medical school or law school. I don't want to boast, but we [at Eliot] had 28 Rhodes when I was there. I think we only missed once. But that's only symbolic."

As Eliot House may have had its over abundance of Rhodes, prepples and clubbies, almost all the Houses in the '50s had their own reputations. All, however, were thought of as "friendly." The discontent and alienation people were often to feel from a large University and its members in the next 20 years was barely on the horizon. A 1954 Social Relations Department study of House reputations found Leverett to be "friendly and happy-go-lucky:" Kirkland was seen as "conventional, middle class and friendly:" Dunster "sociable, happy-go-lucky and athletic;" Adams "musical, aesthetic, ambitious, conventional, friendly, sociable;" Lowell "intellectual, literary, conservative, and intelligent;" Eliot "wealthy, aristocratic, snobbish, white shoe and conservative," and the last House, Winthrop, came out as "athletic, friendly, straightforward, and middle class."