Harvard University - Red Book Yearbook (Cambridge, MA)

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years. Mr. Buck at least is entitled to some credit for work accomplished by indirection: the new developments in General Education under his leadership are already having the result of their methods and their premises. Eventually there may emerge from this a new ts. But it still seems to forcing some social scientists to re-examine sense of mission for all social scientis some not associated with University administration the steps taken have been too slow and somewhat oblique, given the urgency of the social scientists' task. The Customers and Shoddy Goods It is here that students in Harvard College enter the d to the failure of picture. They too, I think, have contribute the social scientists to meet the challenge of these decades. They have displayed great interest in the social sciences-but musement value than with lems of mid-twentieth century society. The dramatic lecturer the picaresque story-teller gains a following. Rarely is he stopped and asked where he is going or what he is trying to do. One of our younger political scientists fnow no longer among usj once built a sizeable reputation by collecting and repeating a long series of dotes about American public figures, past and present. The students loved it--and only one or two of them ' ' ll 91 f l took the pains to discover that this scholar was one o tie finest examples of native fascists ever to emerge out of the American southwest. Like cosmetic manufacturers, teachers are human. The continued acceptance of shoddy goods by usually more concern with their a their capacity to meet the prob obscence anec the customers is a standing invitation to the faculty to con- tinue doing business at the same old stand. Students sometimes forget that the reciprocal relation with their teachers goes beyond lectures and reading lists in exchange for examinations and term papers. There is, or at P bl' Ad ' istration expert john Gaus was known as Ameri- One of the fathers ofthe Marshall Plan, Edward Mason, succeeded hn H. Willialms as Dean of the Littauer School of Public Administration. Professor .Io least there should be, a further mutual responsibility to correct nonsense, to question ends, to point our opportunities missed. This is in a sense the essence of creative criticism and Merle Fainsod, who is an authority on Russia, was a key man in u 1C mm Harvard in 1947. the O.P.A. during the war. ca's most beloved professor when he came to

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Z,qyZ.iw4' ,.,...vUU,,..' f 'fsfga 'wa ,yvQ,,, , ,, paw iQ1?72wi'Wii'j zqiii .1 QMS, m,4,,,, ,ww Qgaa ea. Fils et pere: Arthur Schlesinger, jr., Pulitzer prize-winning author of The Age ofjfzrkron, and his father are both eminent Amer- ican historians. jerry Bruner is the poll expert of the newly formed Social Relations Department. Schlesinger Senior is trying to get American history courses started in European universities, is teaching one himself this year at the University of Leyden. questions: Shall we stockpile non-ferrous metals? Shall we evacuate Berlin? Shall we give federal aid to education? What is lacking is a wider concern, a more sweeping sense of mis- sion in connection with the whole destiny of society. We have many members of this academic community who must be rated respectable plus in terms of competence in their narrow specialities. But we have yet to produce a john Stuart Mill, a Thomas Hobbes, not even ajohn Locke. Wiping Out Departmental Lines In part this lack of a sense of mission can be traced to lack of direction from the President and Provost of the Uni- versity. So far as can be seen to the naked eye, these gentle- men have done little to reorient and develop the social sciences to a new position of usefulness and creative ability. We have seen, it is true, the rise ofthe new Social Relations Department, constructed out of the old Department of Sociology and the fields of social anthropology and social psychology, thus creating, it is to be hoped, one strong department in place of three relatively weak ones. It should be noted, however, that this step merely was a piecemeal effort at what might have been done and what still may be suggested, namely, the wiping out of deparment lines and the combining of all of these so-called fields into one great department of social science. The role of a person in Mr. Conant's position is difficult to assess and it is perhaps unfair to criticize him for going so far and no farther, particularly during the academic confusion of recent l22l

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aging I. If ' '- 5 :,.' ,QI s I -.a,.ff-A., fl as 1. . -' ' .-', X, ' , Y i' '23 . . . cv -. . The late Samuel Cross headed Harvard's Slavic Department. He died suddenly in October, 1946. we social scientists are, I am afraid sadly in need of such criticism. Our real problems are very diHicult to solve, but it is not very diflicult to see what they are. When the faculty overlooks them, the students have plenty of leeway, within the limits of academic good manners, to remind them of their oversight. Delivery by the 25th This may seem to some a baleful survey, like an esti- mate ofthe moral accomplishments of the Republicans written to appear in The New Republic. In fact, nothing of the sort is intended. The failure of the social scientists is not peculiar SAMUEL STOUFFER Professor of Sociology O. H. TAYLOR- lmcturer un lQCOllHllll0N BENJAMIN FLETCHER WRIGHT l'rnl'i-ssnr ui LiUY1'l'Illlll5lllf 1 CHARLES HOLT TAYLOR llc-ury Clmrli-s In-11 l'rnfi-Nsor of lN'luiliuevnl llisiory ABBOTT PAYSON USHER Professor oi Economies CARLE ZIMMERMAN Xssuiriule Professor ol Sociology Roscoe Pound, dean of American jurisprudence, retired in 1947 William Yandell Elliott is a regular Washington-Cambridge after 37 years teaching at Harvard. He has been in China during commuter. A noted political theorist, he was Vice-Chairman of the last two years codifying Chinese law and reorganizing the .the War Production Board and later staff director of the House judiciary. His photographic memory is world-famous. Foreign Relations Committee.