No Bonus For Brooks House

When Harvard let down its hair last March and consented to accept N.Y.A. funds, a long-awaited opportunity for the expansion and improvement of previously ignored college activities was felt to be in the offing. Among the organizations in line for such expansion was Phillips Brooks House. P.B.H. had long felt the need for students to act as paid contact men, working from twenty to forty hours a month in thirty-nine Greater Boston settlement houses, boys' clubs, and Y.M.C.A.'s. The prospect of N.Y.A. aid to pay these salaries was welcomed as a solution to a long-standing problem.

But Uncle Sam's dollars have not flowed so easily into the expected channels. The Harvard N.Y.A. administration committee has indicated that priority will be granted to those departments of the University which need additional money to help fill in the gaps caused by the recent budget slashes. Such a policy seems to contradict the University's original declaration that N.Y.A. money would in no way replace one penny of the million dollars Harvard already gives its students ins scholarships, loans, and jobs. It means also the organizations like P.B.H., which were not affected by recent changes in monetary policy, are left out in the cold, exactly where they started.

No one has denied that the work of Brooks House would be immeasurably improved by giving competent and needy students salaries to carry on social service activities. Many local colleges have long employed such a system, with considerable success. It is simply a matter of filling in some of the deficiencies caused by recent budget cuts with governments funds--a policy which, while in a sense justifiable, seems contrary to the administration's declared plans. And P.B.H. must once again wait for the pot-of-gold which has long been its due.