The uproar this spring among freshmen opposed to a change in house assignment would have surprised generations of earlier men and women at Harvard. Far from adapting to the latest change suggested by administrators, students acted as if the lottery system was an untouchable Harvard tradition, as sacred as eating ice cream every day.

But history suggests few things could be further from the truth.

Freshman house selection has been transformed so drastically in its 60 years of existence that today's system seems to be a polar opposite of the first selection process of the 1930s.

Founding father of the house system President A.L. Lowell made it clear in 1930 that houses selected students, not vice-versa. "The crucial point is the selection of the students for each House," he said in a speech introducing the new system.

Students who applied for spaces in the system had to complete detailed application forms for each house in which they were interested. Decisions about who could live in each house were left solely to masters.

Competition was intense to enter the deluxe new rooms in the first two houses--Lowell and Dunster--as 700 juniors vied for 160 spaces in September, 1930.

Factors such as high school background, scholastic rank, financial resources, concentration, athletics and social club membership all played a role in applying. Students also had to state the amount they would pay for a room, which, in that day, cost between $110 and $500 per student.

Yet even then the administration hailed diversity's importance. "Each house is intended to comprise as nearly as may be a cross-section of the whole residential membership of the College," said Lowell.

Independent Barons

The system of masters' choice continued for 30 years, through the late 1950s, by which time the house system had become a Harvard institution. The masters' role, both in selecting residents and directing academic, social and athletic activities, made them a focal point in each house.

Assistant Dean of Freshmen W.C. Burriss Young '55 recalls the application process for the houses as "sort of like applying to college." Some of the more serious masters would go so far as to pull students' admissions folders from the Freshmen Dean's Office, Young says.

In Class, a 1985 novel romanticizing Harvard in the 50s-by Erich Segal '58, masters wheeled and dealed their way to secure the 'best' students.

In one part of the novel, Eliot House Master John Finley '25 explains to underclassman Danny Rossi, a musical genius, why he had been assigned to Eliot, which Rossi considers full of "smug preppies." Finley says, "I wanted you very badly, Daniel. I had to trade the master of Adams two football stalwarts and a published poet just to get him to relinquish you."

Finley escorts Rossi to his room, which is complete with a broad vista of the Charles River and a grand piano--a special conducement for Rossi.

Young says masters from the 1950s set the tone for their houses. Young in particular noted Finley and Master Eliot Perkins of Lowell as "the classic masters of Harvard legend." The pair even battled one another from their courtyard domains in a long-standing rivlarly.