Harvard University - Red Book Yearbook (Cambridge, MA)

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HARVARD NINETEEN THIRTY-FOUR CLASS ALBUM Harvardis New President and His Objectives Editofs Note: Thefollowz'ng two articles on Presidenlt Conan! and Lowell, by Mr. H. 1. Brock 0fthe New York Times, reprexent the im- partial judgment ofa trained observer who, although not a Harvard man, has had the opportunity to become thoroughly acquainted with Harvard. The editors ofthe ALBUM do not necessarily endorse the opinions exprested in these articlet, which are reprinled by special permission from Sunday editions of the Times. WHIS is an age ?;52' mt. 0f dictators. Vitiiigg As a rule the a ' SLTQEA' dictators up- on whom the eyes of the world are fixed have seized the power they wield within the last few years or months. Either they have been lifted to the top by a revolution, as in Russia, or they have pushed aside the monarch or other constituted author- ity by a controlled revo- lution, as was done by Mussolini in Italy. But at Harvard, in liberty-proclaiming Mas- sachusetts, it is different. At Harvard for three long generations the president ofthe university has been czar. He is still czar. No matter that his vast power is, in a fashion, extra-legalathat it derives principally from his position as head of a small self-perpetuating corporation in which is lodged complete financial control and final, if not quite so unlimited, responsibility for the conduct of the institution otherwise. What counts most, therefore, at Harvard is who is president. For twoscore years Charles W. Eliot ruled and set the mold of the Harvard man. For a score and odd years more Abbott Lawrence Lowell controlled the stamping mill. Now there is a new president; therefore a new Harvard, though the new man has been in harness only a few months. Everybody feels it, notwithstanding that the difference discoverable to the eye is principally that, instead of the familiar figure of Mr. Lowell, moving unobtrusively about the yard, there is the no- longer-strange, but very different iigure of James Bryant Conant, moving about the yard, just as unobtrusively. The path from the president's house to the president's office leads right through the Yard and the normal course of the presidenfs peregrinations is along this path. But never mind: wherever he goes he goes unobtrusively. Other members of the university, whether professors of the faculty or under- graduates, pay no more attention to his goings and comings than they pay to the goings and comings of any other familiar local figure. Or they seem not to. None the less, there is a new Harvard since June of last year. And everybody at Harvard knows it. The recent an- nouncement of freshman fellowships for ctstudents of rare ability and promise'i-fellowships covering on a modest scale full college expenses, and though for the present limited to young men ttliving and attending schoolii in six Middle Western States, designed eventually to bring together at Harvard ttoutstanding students from every section'i of the Mr. Conant as a student country--is the strongest indication so far that the new era is taking practical shape. Among the prodigious accomplishments of Mr. Lowell,s twenty-three years of command was the creation of the elaborate modern plant of the university of which Dr. Eliot was the spiritual father, the practical rebuilding of the old college into seven units, each bigger than the old college used to be, and the distribution into these units called cthousesl, of the t'amorphous mass,' of undergraduates. Incidentally, in that twenty-three years a hundred million dollars was added to the endowment, These things have been done. The big job of Mr. Lowellts successor is not to be builder but operator; to see that the best material and the best workmanship go into the educational product. The sense that he means to dojust this thing is what is in the air and makes the new Harvard. Lowell, in fact, was neglectful neither of educational material nor of educational workmanship, but he had the shop to build first. Conant can concentrate on the product. And he is equipped to do it. The twenty-third president of Americas oldest and best- known institution dedicated to the advancement and per- petuation of learning was translated to his post of high com- mand from the chemical laboratory, where his researches had won him world-wide recognition as a iirst-rate productive scientist. Yet he is just short of41 years old and looks a deal younger. Outstanding characteristics of the man are simplicity, a frankness which takes on at times the quality of downright boyish candor, and a mind trained to face facts and habitu- ated to direct, and courageous but unhurried action. The distinction is important. An effect of not being hurried at all is one of the strongest impressions received in his presence. There is also the impression ofa clear Vision of what essential- ly needs doing and a strong will to do it, brooking no fruitless delayw-yet with an open, alert and considerate mind about the means of getting it done. Oliver Cromwell is one of the worlds strong men that Conant particularly admiresaas is proper and natural in a descendant of the excellent Puritan, Roger Conant, who came to Massachusetts in the early days of the liberal stir which eventually made Cromwell master of England and lost King Charles his head. Cromwell had his aimsahigh ones--his iron will to achieve those aims, but so fluid was his mind in regard to the real signihcance of passing events and current causesidetermining which side he stood on at one time and anotherathat he has been roundly abused for inconsistency or worse. Taking this as parable, it may well be that Conant, too, in the means he adopts, will be opportunist or strategisti-as you will. He learned in the laboratory to deal with facts and deal with them patiently, with the single object of producing re- sults. It is results that he is after as president of Harvard. The particular results he is after are determined by ideals of educationi;which in this mild-mannered man twith the blue eyes that not infrequently indulge in a gaminlike twinkle behind his steel-rimmed spectaclesl are cherished with al-

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HARVARD NINETEEN THIRTY-FOUR CLASS ALBUM 17 most religious intensity. Since the advancement and perpetu- ation of learning are things so linked together that they are inseparable; since the whole structure of civilization depends on the cultivation of knowledgemwhieh has created eiyi- lization and enabled it to progress; since, also, the institutions of higher learning are the trustees in whose hands lies the future of human knowledge, a heavy responsibility to the nation and the race rests upon our universities, rests more heavily, perhaps, upon the privately endowed universities, equipped with costly facilities for study and research, often unmatched anywhere else. Conantis official utterances since he assumed office have emphasized this responsibility especially in regard to Har- vard. But his doctrine, in general, holds that, in order to achieve their appointed destiny, the universities must accept responsibility for the fullest use of the opportunity which is theirs toward saying the substance of democracy. This is the more important in the face of the present eclipse of an old simple faith in democracye-a faith so strong that the mere word was one to conjure with. That faith held rule of, by and for the people a sovereign panacea for sick civilization. If Conant, like other practical men of our time, is no believer in panaceas, he does, never- theless, stand firmly for the maintenance of the ultimate basis of democracy in the intellectual worldi-prime agent and custodian of Civilization. There must be equal access to the educational ladder as a means of climbing to the top. At the same time, since the educational ladder is rightly designed to lead to the top only those who really do advance and per- petuate knowledge, there must also be effective, and there- fore more or less merciless, elimination of the unfit as the process of mounting the rungs proves them so. Here Conant resembles all the thoroughgoing idealists in the hard-boiled act of making their dreams come true. The changes in things as they are which that act involves may, and often do, require a degree of ruthlessness in the removal of Cherished clutterv-institutions, practices, and even amiable individuals entrenched in the clutter. No official massacres or wholesale deeapitations are plan- ned for Harvard. That is certain, Suaviter in modo is Con- antis way. Though an idealist, he is a considerate and very human person. But Harvard also has its cherished clutter. What Conant is going to do with the clutter can only, for the present, be guessed at. He has been on thejob less than a twelvemonth. But he has already stopped the seven oieloek morning bell, which was a venerable and sacrosanet institutioneand anachronismwein Harvard Yard. And those new freshman fellowshipswa draught of selected fresh blood from the Middle Westi-are earnest of his intention to carry out the policy of more widely distributed opportunity to get into Harvard twhich does not mean that Harvard will take in more men; quality not quan- tity is what is desiredl and a stricter rule of the survival of the fittest among those admitted to the university,s privileges. At the same time, the large body of men in the college who seek only a liberal education will not be too much discouraged. Conant by no means underrates the value of this basic ele- ment toward the continued usefulness ofHarvard. Though it is likely that his modesty would Charge it to haste under pressure of multiple tasks within strict time lim- its, it seems a fair index of the new presidenUs simplicity, in the best sense of the wordiesinee he is using the economy of a scientific mind in stating accurately conclusions arrived at by factual analysis r-that in all his public and semi-public expressions certain things are set forth in words almost identical. One of these things is his idea of what a university is and what it is for. The essence ofthe idea goes back to the medie- val pattern. A university is a community of scholars and stu- dents. A university exists, in the exact words used by the founders ofHarvard 300 years ago, llto advance learning and perpetuate it to posterity? But gledueation and theology were by Harvardls founders conceived as inseparable. Today learning has become secular? Wherefore, llthe universities are now the residuary legatees of many of the spiritual values which used to be guarded by the churches? These spiritual values are so fundamental that, unless the elaborate ma- chinery of modern edu- cation is informed by them, they labor in vain that build libraries, laboratories, museums, gymnasiums, lecture halls, and all the houses with which the House Plan has dotted the low banks of the Charles River at Cambridge. Here is Conantis creed in his own words com- pacted into a nutshell: tilt is only by advancing learning that it is possible to perpetuate learning. When knowledge ceases to expand and develop it becomes devitalized and degraded. It is not sufheient to train investigators and scholars, no matter how brilliant they may be; a large body of influential citizens must have a passionate interest in the growth of human knowledge. It is our ambition to inspire the undergraduates of Harvard College with an enthusiasm for creative scholar- ship and a respect for the accumulated treasures of the past. A zest for intellectual adventure must be characteristic of every university. The teachers must be scholars who are extending the frontiers of knowledge in every direction? The compelling reason is that Clable young men enlist only in an enterprise to which they are persuaded they, too, may contribute creative work? If there is no such challenge in the intellectual field tended by the universities the young men will find the challenge elsewhere. The hold on youth is thus broken and the community at large loses interest. After all, of what permanent value is a community of scholars and students which fails to keep alive a llhigh regard for the achievements of the human mind? -the thing upon which the structure of civilization is built r-and which does not, therefore, llnurture true reverence for learning in the com- munityW, Of this community the loyal body of seholastically undis- tinguished alumnirwhat the English call llpassmeniiwis an influential part. It is these men who furnish universities not only their endowment but a powerful backing of which pride in the universities, achievements is the mainstay. Characterize as platitudes, if you have a mind, the quota- tations above. They are not platitudes to Conant. They rep- resent the practical religion or philosophyn-name it how you will 7-which is the inspiration and the guide to action ofa man brought up in a laboratory who confesses that he is part- ly armed for the conflict with life by Marcus Aurelius and Montaigne. These are moralists pragmatic enough, one Latest picture of President Conant