Harvard Law School - Yearbook (Cambridge, MA)

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Langdell Hall, offices, classrooms, library, and general clearing house for Law School life. Austin Hall: at night, its stone a silent testimony to the knowledge which has resounded through its rooms

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THE SPIRIT CF LIBERTY In the critieul World War II year of 1944 a vast I Am an American Day ceremony was held in Central Park, New York City, on May 21. Many thourandr of people were present, including a large number of new citizens. Learned I-Iand'.f brief address war .ro eloquent and Jo mouin g that the text immediately became the object of wide demand. We have gathered here to afiirm a faith, a faith in a common purpose, a common con- viction, a common devotion. Some of us have chosen America as the land of our adoption, the rest have come from those who did the same. For this reason we have some right to consider ourselves a picked group, a group of those who had the courage to break from the past and brave the dangers and the loneliness of a strange land. What was the object that nerved us, or those who went before us, to this choice? We sought libertyg freedom from oppression, freedom from want, freedom to be ourselves. This we then sought, this we now believe that we are by way of winning. What do we mean when we say that first of all we seek liberty? I often wonder whether we do not rest our hopes too much upon constitutions, upon laws and upon courts. These are false hopes, believe me, these are false hopes. Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women, when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it, no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it. While it lies there it needs no constitution, no law, no court to save it. And what is this liberty which must lie in the hearts of men and women? It is not the ruthless, the unbridled willg it is not freedom to do as one likes. That is the denial of liberty, and leads straight to its overthrow. A society in which men recognize no check upon their freedom soon becomes a society where freedom is the possession of only a savage few, as we have learned to our sorrow. What then is the spirit of liberty? I cannot define itg I can only tell you my own faith. The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is rightg the spirit of liberty is the spirit which seeks to understand the minds of other men and women, the spirit of liberty is the spirit which weighs their interests alongside its own without bias, the spirit of liberty remembers that not even a sparrow falls to earth unheededg the spirit of-liberty is the spirit of Him who, near two thousand years ago, taught mankind that lesson it has never learned, but has never quite forgotteng that there may be a kingdom where the least shall be heard and considered side by side with the greatest. And now in that spirit, that spirit of an America which has never been, and which may never beg nay which never will be except as the conscience and courage of Americans create itg yet in the spirit of that America which lies hidden in some form in the aspirations of us all, in the spirit of that America for which our young men are at this moment fighting and dying, in that spirit of liberty and of America I ask you to rise and with me pledge our faith in the glorious destiny of our beloved country. LEARNED HAND

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Resembling a Wright design, the covered walks add beauty to the dormitory complex. .. Inside the buildings, students gather 'round for the perennial after-class question period. Brunt of many iokes, the World Tree casts its shadow over campus life like a giant sundial.