Harvard University - Red Book Yearbook (Cambridge, MA)

Page 16 text:

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-

Page 15 text:

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-

Page 17 text:

struction. Some liked it, some did not, the girls did. The clubs had to close their restaurants, the Hasty Pudding became an Off1cer's Club, and the Signet Society was turned Red Cross. The Advorate was inactive, and the Service Newt, the wartime Crimson, was an editorialless semi- weekly, full of publicity handouts from the Chaplains' School, and columns devoted to the love life of the Ensigns in the Yard. The Lampoon put out only a few issues, and the Dram- atic Club was silent. Only the Postwar Council and the Crim- son Network remained anything like their former selves. The pattern of our college life during the summer and after was therefore made up mainly of work and reminiscences. '45ers grew closer together as Harvard became a small college, and mourned the loss of the good old days together. Radcliffe took a major role in social life. Few events of importance penetrated the summer heat. Onjuly 24th, Gunder Hagg broke the American record for the mile at Soldiers Field in 41055, which was exciting for the track fan, but meant little to the majority. Down at Fort Bragg, a softball team of '45 ROTC men, going through basic training, met and defeated a similar crew of Yalies twice, over to the Harvard's last wartime sports victories over the Blue. At the end of August, student palates refused to accept any more powdered eggs, and a revolt spread through the civilian Houses. Many said they hadnlt seen a piece of red meat in weeks. Whether because of the food or in spite of it, a riot broke out as a mob marched on Radcliffe to protect the girls from some thieves who had been operating in Cabot Hall. Unfortunately the demonstration was held under the window of the local police chief, and the whole idea died a quick death. Winston Churchill, cigar and all, provided the event of the summer as he unexpectedly dropped in to pick up an honorary degree. There was, all this time, considerable student agitation for a Yale football game, informal team or no informal team, but in the face of Dean's Office and ODT opposition, the movement made little headway. As the summer waned and the accustomed coffee began to replace milk and iced-tea at Hayes-Bick, student life revived a bit. The Advocate announced its resurrection with the usual Punch. A long overdue Russian issue was the sole fruit of this abortive Renaissance, and the Bow Street- journal bowed out for the duration. The HDC woke up and started producing again, and the Lazmpoon elected Bob Ward president as Mac Osborne left college. The football team, informal and largely unskilled labor, coached by Henry Lamar, defeated an overconiident Camp Edwards team and lost to Worcester Polytechnic Institute Qsicj. Only 859 civilian students, mostly freshmen, returned for the winter semester in November, but those '45ers who were left welcomed back our Mil Sci delegation, which lived in Winthrop until january. The football team, strengthened by Paul Perkins and his younger brother, Rod, beat Edwards again, lost a close one to Tufts, and saved the University from being torn apart brick by brick, by tying Boston College, 6 to 6. Dick Mechem tried to start a hockey team, but the H.A.A. turned thumbs down, and Dean Hennessy was not enough to save the basketball team from weekly shellackings, including one by Yale, as the cold, wet, and now lonesome Cambridge winter settled down upon us. Taking advantage of the presence of several uniformed editors on leave in Cambridge, a special issue of the Crimson was sent to 13,000 alumni on December 7th, bringing back a touch of a very remote past to Harvard men in the armed forces. Our thinning ranks were cut in half when the hrst 95 members of our class to graduate, left the University without ceremony in February. The winter seemed slower and more tedious than ever, and Harvard began to be a place to get out of as soon as possible. On the other hand a few classmates came back from the Army, including Third Marshal Mike Keene, and small signs of a return to normalcy were pathetic- ally welcomed. Symbolically, the Yard, which had been turned into a dust bowl by thousands of Navy feet, was reseeded, and by Commencement time was green again. The Dramatic Club, produced Syngeis Playboy Of The Western World, with Radcliffe in the best 'mfr gmtiaz affix, tradition. In May, as injanuary, theses and divisionals began to make their appearance as topics of conversation. Onjune 29th, 62 degrees were awarded to members of the class at a real pre-war style Commencement shared with the military. Actually it seemed to have been held mainly for the publicity value of the 5000 certificates being awarded to members of the Army and Navy studying at Harvard. Renaissance! The Yard is reseeded.