The man for whom the House was named--former University President A. Lawrence Lowell, Class of 1887--had called for the creation of small residential colleges in the mid 1920s.

"Contacts, good talk, wide range of friendships flourish when men live in a community and take their meals in the same dining room," he had said.

In 1930, Dunster, Eliot and Lowell inaugurated the House system. The next year, existing buildings were converted into Adams, Kirkland, Leverett and Winthrop Houses--bringing the total to seven, where it stood until Quincy House was added in 1959.

Socially and artistically, the Houses were flourishing. In 1951, for example, Adams House put on Johan Strauss' operetta "Gypsy Baron." Students in Dunster House--known as "Funsters"--staged Donizetti's "Anna Bolena." In Eliot House, the play that year was Ben Johnson's "Every Man in His Honor." After selling out "H.M.S. Pinafore" the year before, Winthrop House put on Gilbert and Sullivan's "Yeoman of the Guard."

Lowell House was remembered that year for its dances and beer parties. The House library stocked Esquire magazine and other weighty reading matter. Kirkland had its usual high turnout at that year's House football games. Leverett held "Bunny Dances," named after the House mascot.

All in all, administrators congratulated themselves on the contribution Houses made to college life.

"Each of the Houses tries, and pretty successfully, to contain within itself all the types that can be found in the undergraduate body," they wrote in a pamphlet explaining the Houses to first-years.

But the Houses still suffered from at least one major problem: they were too crowded. The post-war veteran influx had packed the Houses past their bursting points. And because of the numbers, House-based tutorials--a mainstay of the original House vision--had to be suspended.

Citing the loss of tutorials, Dean of the College Wilbur J. Bender reported in 1949 that the Houses were "far from realizing the ideal which Mr. Lowell ... had in mind when the House system was established."

A New Normal

In its look and feel, Harvard returned to normalcy during the years of the Class of 1951. But post-war normal was beginning to diverge from the earlier status quo.

In their first year, the Class of 1951 surpassed the veterans' record-setting grades of the past years, earning the highest marks on record at the College. More first-years were on the Dean's List and fewer had been forced to withdraw than any class since records were first kept in the early 1920s.

Graduates of New England's elite preparatory academies now found themselves outperformed by students from public high schools. During the Class of 1951's first year, 23 percent of private school students made the Dean's List. 41 percent of public school students were on the list.

This discrepancy did not go unnoticed by admissions officers, who reported in 1948 that "our scholarship policy opens the door of opportunity at Harvard to those boys of inferior economic status who are at the very top in academic performance."

Suddenly, administrators began to talk seriously about improving financial aid. The first tuition hike in two decades played a major part in the debate.