Harvard University - Red Book Yearbook (Cambridge, MA)

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F IR HARVARD, THY SCNS TO THY JUI Top Row: Night and day studies of the Houses along the Charles.. .The impressive tower of Memorial Hall . . . John Harvard's statue in front of University Hall . . . Eliot House from across the river. Bottom Row: Littauer Center of Public Administration in Spring . . . The Navy invades the Yard . . . Thayer and Memorial Church looking lonely on a late fall afternoon .... Harvard Hall, the oldest classroom building in the Yard . . . Snowstorm in the Yard, Memorial Church through Sever doorway . . . Lowell House Tower through the trees.

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These same two semesters were to see the last of peacetime Harvard, it was Culture's last stand. Eight hundred and sixty of us returned in October, 1942, about as many as the usual sophomore class, by july less than one- quarter of that number were still in college. The Harvard of freshman year and the summer school were relatively unaffected by the war, but we were now in a period of adjustment to the demands of Washington. For the University this meant anxious waiting for directives and frantic attempts to comply with them. For us it meant less and less freedom, and even more anxious waiting for our fu- ture to be decided by Selective Service and Army and Navy ollicialdom. There were varied reactions to these changed condi- tions. Frantic acceleration and changing of programs was the answer for the lucky few who found that the war coincided with their plans for a career, or who were willing to adjust themselves to the changed conditions. A few impatient ones enlisted, but a large majority were willing to yield to inertia and waited for the Draft Board to solve their problems. Even this last group was split, some worked on with the long view in mind ffinishing college after the war and going on as plannedj and others just let things take care of themselves. The term began even before registration with a football game. A green Harvard team with a large '45 representation fthe Fishers, Don Richards, Charley Gudaitis, Sid Smith and Pete Garlandj lost to star-studded North Carolina Pre- Flight School, 13-O, continuing the old Crimson tradition of losing the Hrst few games. Registration on the following The Soldiers Field front: marching and calisthenics. S Studying al fresco during the first Summer Session. Monday was a far cry from the frantic freshman rush of a year before. Few tried to sign up at 9.00, we nonchalantly waved aside the laundry, cleaning and magazine salesmen or else sold the merchandise ourselves to gullible newcomers. The accelerated schedules with five or six courses and tutorial seemed to leave little time for fooling and there were more good resolutions than usual. Soon after the Penn game, falso lost, the V-1 and ERC, Navy and Army college plans, were announced, and the mad scrambling to fit study programs to changing Washington directives began. Paths were beaten to Little Hall, where the harassed Dr. Perkins became to many the best-known man on the faculty. As the fall wore on and the unlucky football team became the gamest Harvard team in years,'l conditions which would have seemed impossible a few months before, became almost normal. Even individu- ality-destroying calisthenics was officially made a permanent institution and taken in stride. The Deanls office, war-profiteering on its own, seized upon the national emergency to strike a blow against student liberties, and issued anti-cutting regulations. The Student Council and the Crimron objected strenuously, ,but University Hall took off the velvet gloves and passed some half-hearted resolution anyway. Most professors, too busy to keep attendance, ignored it, and so the matter rested. The ERC and V-1 got many new customers when the 18-year-old draft bill entered Congress just before the Dartmouth game.

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