Harvard University - Red Book Yearbook (Cambridge, MA)

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On january 6th, President Lowell died, and for once the hackneyed phrase passing of an era really had some meaning. Onjanuary 10th the soon to be leaving Classes of 1945 and 1944 held a full-dress valedictory service in Memorial Church. It was to be for all students since few would in the future graduate with any ceremony, but most of '45 slept on that cold, grey Sunday morning while President Conant asked for equal educational opportunity for all. If this was to be the future of Harvard few of us took note of it. The winter went by as usual, but the social scene was witness to something new: the Farewell Party. Going into the Army was almost universally an occasion for some cele- bration, usually stag, attended with much nostalgia and much alcohol. So frequent were these affairs that many of us re- membered our stay at Harvard from this time forward, as no more than a long series of Farewell parties. Exams in all this excitement were an anticlimax, and grades were the worst in years. By the beginning of the Spring Term we were actually the senior class. Most of '43 and '44 left in February and we began to run extracurricular affairs. Mac Osborne and Hugh Calkins were elected president of the Lazmpoan and the Crimrozz respectively, and Kingsley Ervin and Ormonde De Kaye took charge of Mother Advocate. At this time the University provided us with a long overdue system by which the drafted student could get full credit for anything more than a half term's work. Cumula- tive grade became part of the vocabulary, and hour exams and papers were increased. The symmetrical three-semester year was adopted, a year too late, to replace the inefficient summer school of the year before. On March 2nd, the ERC got their orders, a month behind schedule and the Air Corps Reserve unexpectedly left Gunder Hagg Crightj sets American record for the mile at Sol- diers Field. Winnie leaving Memorial Hall after receiving an honorary degree. soon after. Half of '45 went with them. The pattern of wartime Harvard became still clearer when it was announced that we would get four additional army groups and a V-12 unit. A relaxed class, with some assurance of their tenure, enjoyed the spring term as much as it could. No one knew when they would perform their functions at a Commencement but we elected our class officers anyway. With much clown- ing and joking we competed with some of the smartest high school seniors in the country, in the combined ASTP-V-12 test. If the science concentrators knew more elementary algebra than the others, they were not too sharp on grammar and vocabulary. Some inconsiderate hit-and-run bike rider had the hard luck to run down a dean's office employee in the Yard, and bikes were banned on the historic premises, another infringement upon the much advertised freedom of the individual. A few chuckles were provided by the New York Timer which had tested college freshmen fnot Harvard'sj on Ameri- can history. Evidently not taking the answers in the same spirit of good clean fun as the freshmen had taken the ques- tions, the metropolitan journal was horrified at the thought of college students knowing William james as a bandit and Charles William Eliot as a Boston social worker. The Crimron rushed to the defense of the battered collegiate sense of humor with a full page feature that told the Timer where they could get off. 151-

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One World on Massachusetts Avenue. The Dartmouth weekend was strictly business as usual. The worried Harvard student, serious and aged by the war was treated to the sight ofjoe College on a spree as the Injuns came down from the hills, nothing on their minds but football, goalposts, likker and women. They won the game, so there was no attack on the Harvard History depart- ment, and cocktail parties helped us to be philosophical about it. The slowly moving stream of draftees and volunteers made itself noticed as the Crimson Network and the soon to be discontinued Guardian asked for Radcliffe help, and the Dramatic Club announced that its fall production would be in collaboration with the ladies across the Common. Another unnoticed change in Cambridge life was highlighted at the Army game when 3800 uniformed members ofthe armed forces stationed at Harvard paraded before the kickoff. The Crimiofz announced that Waves were going to move in on Radcliffe in january. Of course this was denied, and of course they moved in on schedule. We thought we had seen the last ofjoe College at the Dartmouth game, but the Princeton game was our turn to tear. After Richards had run the Tiger ragged and Sid Smith had recovered a fumble to set up the winning touchdown, Harvard abandoned itself to all kinds of despised collegiatism. We fought for the goalposts, sang, yelled, cheered and got drunk. Everything was there but the raccoon coat. The 18-year-old draft bill was signc weekend, pointing up the fact that this wa many years. We were primed for a big tir cold, the crowded trains, and above all t spoiled the plans, and many went home t in Cambridge, while others went on to N1 in New Haven and listened to the jubilant On November 29, while we were x ing the defeat of Boston College by Holy that it would quiet the Boston sportswrit Cocoanut Grove burnt down. The impact heavier than Pearl Harbor as 14 members including three '45ers, lost their lives. December dragged on toward the i and our nerves, strained by the interminat maybes of Washington, were still furtl about the Navy V-1 plan and the ERC in ' the college was enrolled, traveled thick and beef and broiled schrod, and calisrher panted up to the fourth floor of the Indo' to fling themselves with renewed ardo kneebend and push-up sessions. On the night of December 17th, streets with an extra on the College Manpc Army hopefuls were to go on February reserve a while later, and the Navy men form byjune. The simultaneous announ Specialized Training Program made u: training was not entirely superfluous in the ly studies were not abandoned in a sud Sensate spirit. Of course nobody thought that tl at last the final Washington,' decision, ' it would not be changed till after the and, availing ourselves of an upperclass jumped the gun and went home early pure escape. Good for what ails you, especially during x

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The Committee on The Objectives of a Free Society in a Post-War World charts Harvard's course for the future. Clockwise: Dean Buck, Professors Ulich, Dunlop, Wright, jones Demos, Hoadley, Gaus, Schlesinger, Wilson, Einley. At about this time, the Boiron Globe screamed out the sensational news that Harvard was going co-ed. The Corpora- tion denied categorically this ugly rumor, and then owned up that, well, maybe a few Radcliffe girls might be admitted to a few advanced courses, but the whole thing was just an administrative change. One of the last eruptions of pre-war style high jinks was the weekend of May lst, which saw the Lazmnpoon parody issue scooped by a Spy Club parody of the C1'i77ZJ07'l, a raid on the Crimson Network which almost succeeded, a semi- annual Dramatic Club North American premiere, and the annual Crime-Lampy parade fin a hearsej and baseball game which ended in a tie, Z3-2. Announcement of a V-12 daily schedule brought an- ticipatory shudders to approximately one hundred '45ers who were to return to the summer by courtesy of the Navy. Such obscene and unheard of things as 6.00 a.m. risings and trots around the river, and supervised study periods were a little more than some of the junior bluejackets had bargained for. On Monday, May 27th, after exam period, the Crimson, a characteristic feature of Harvard life, was suspended for the duration, and the Lazm,ooon'i AGO spoke well for most of us: The scythe has swung, the sands have run, The measured candle gutted Our brief intensive course is done, - Our weary brains are glutted. Come crate our chattels, stuff some box With loud but tasty tweeds, With Chesterlields and yellow socks And such civilian needs. Our youth is spent, our fling is flung, We've drained the brimming cup. Our whirl is spun, our song is sung, Out college days are up. So shoot the sheepskin to us, Jim, And show us to the door. Welve clambered out upon the limb And now we're off to war. rr 16 Two hundred members of the class, split almost equally between civilian students and V-12ers, returned in july to a Cambridge that was almost unrecognizable. The House dining halls, civilian and Navy, became mess halls, and students waited in line with tin trays for food that made the Union seem like Durgin Park. Adams, Lowell and Dunster were crammed with ambitious 16-year-old chemistry, physics and pre-med students, who were going to Harvard merely to prepare for the Army or Medical School. The rooms in Eliot and Kirkland were stripped of furniture and pictures, and white navy jumpers became the clothes style. Everywhere around the University there were long lines of Army and Navy men. A baby pen complete with swings and sand pile was put up near Phillips Brooks House. But these were only the physical changes. The old easy-going life, the studying for srudying's sake, the interest in intellectual subjects without smirking self-consciousness, were all gone with our classmates and friends. Swearing our their training they considered us lucky, and of course we were, but attending Harvard afterjune was no fun. Actually, Har- vard was gone, we were just in Cambridge to get our degrees or to pass the time. We of '45 were the old-timers, the big frogs in a pond that had shrunk to a mud puddle of some 1200 souls. The civilians felt, and rightly, that the University was no more their own. lt belonged to the Ensigns studying Electronics and the ASTP men studying Chinese. They were only the somewhat embarrassing stepchildten of University Hall. The V-12ers in the class had a uniform and the feeling that they belonged to something, but with that went little else. The S. S. Kirkland and the S. S. Eliot, were no longer Houses. The Navy world was a different world entirely with different ideals and different standards. The fact that they were in Cambridge only made Navy life seem a little incongtuous, and made its restrictions a little more galling. It was a deflating and melancholy experience for all concerned. ln our classes were at least one Radcliffe girl to every male. This, consistent with the official statement of a few months before, wasnit co-education at all but joint in-