The smoker at which Mortimer Karpp spoke of a "modified" (i. e. houseless) House Plan is now legendary, and overgrown with a good deal of undeserved romanticism. But in the actuality of a dynamic organization at 292 Convent, stands a lasting tribute to a single individual and a group of enthusiastic, socially hungry college youth. In the calm of the winter of 1934, instructors in Townsend Harris Hall found their rooms stormed by small bands of enterprising freshmen, eager to be the first to set up active House sections. Frequenters of the faculty lounge were no end disturbed with the presence on Thursdays, at 4, of noisy neophytes, consuming cake and coffee (sometimes with sugar, but more often without), and generally making that section of the campus appear to be inhabited by normal human beings. It was the plan of Mr. Karpp to set up small groups of from twenty-five to fifty freshmen, chosen at random, and observe how they would acclimate themselves to each other, and whether they would present a more integrated appearance to the College community. Houses were to be named after prominent alumni and others who had made noteworthy and desirable contributions to the College ... in a conscious at- tempt to develop a spirit of loyalty and tradition which most highly urbanized colleges lack. Out of the mad scramble for names first appeared Sim, Bowker, Remsen, Werner, Weir, Dean, Harris, and Shepard, with Briggs, Gibbs, and Abbe following at a later date. Thursday afternoon coffee hours began to be held in shifts as the House Plan membership lists increased; and the participation of Plannites began a very successful revitalization of a moribund system of intramural athletics. Faculty members were ensnared by the boys, and the unblushing presence of such men as Professors Dick- son, Wright, and Otis, and Messrs. Seliger, Harvey, Weissman (now at 23rd Street), along with Mr. Karpp, was a tradition-shattering phenomenon. Through varying shifts in personnel and cleavages from the original system of chance-selected groups, about two hundred and fifty students were pleasantly surprised to find themselves housed in a furniture-less dwelling at 292 Convent in May 1935. Attacked on the one hand as radical, and on the other as an administration dose of sugar coated purgative to the disgruntled and disillusioned students at the College, the new organization attracted the attention of the Class of 1910, and that group endowed the House Plan with a gift of one thousand dollars, which was used to buy much needed apparatus on which to rest one's weary posterior. The House Plan Association, a membership corporation, was set up under the presidency of Dean Gottschall, who had been, and continued to be, a hearty sympathizer, and active worker for the social fledgling. The first bequest was followed in turn by others from the Bowker family, from the Class of 1905, from the Class of 1911, and from the College post of the American Legion. Mrs. Leffingwell, niece to the late Edward M. Shepard, presented the building at 292 to the House Plan Association in the spring of 1937, and the gift was marked by simple, yet impressive ceremonies the following November. The day of homemade benches and seats improvised from piles of books has passed . . . and some regret it, for to them, the pioneer spirit has gone, too. Among the proud possessions of the Plannites is a modest but growing library; a well-equipped music room (with its six hundred dollar radio- victrola) ; the 1910 Room, among whose great claims to fame is the fact that it is one of the extra-curricular stamping grounds of Professor Morris.