Harvard University - Red Book Yearbook (Cambridge, MA)

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Xrisiwiitta- l'l'uf4-ssor of Pliilnsnpli HEN RY DAVID AIKEN STUART ATKINS .fXH:4o1:iiiLi: l'rofi-me-ior of Gl!llllUll RALPH BEATLEY sr-ioviztte l,l'llf4'NHUl' of liiluifittiun HERBERT BLOCH Xssoc. Prof. uf Gm-iflc mul Littin JAMES M. CARPENTER Asisistnnt l'l'oft-Hrmr uf lfiue Arts Y l AMADO ALON SO 'roff-ssor of llnlniuwiv liungungvs und Liturixturc EDWARD BALLAN Tl N E Anson. Prof. of Music, l'linL'ritus WILLIAM BERRIEN 'rofi-sr-mr of R0lllll.lll'l5 l.ullgiiiu.tt'H unil Iiiteiuuirae JOHN BUSH Professor of English ALFRED K. CHIU lmctiurur on Cliilwsn Lungungc und Literature The Real Prophets How wrong such prophets were was proved not only by the continued activity of students and teachers during the war but in the continued development of the humanities in the more recent period of pseudo-peace. The years from 1942 to 1948 have seen Harvard scholars contributing their full share in all branches of the liberal arts. There have been books like Professor jaeger's monumental Paicleiu, already a classic, or like Professor Rollins's variorum edition of Shakespeare's Sonnets. Theodore Spencer and Theodore Morrison proved the vitality of the muses even in times of catastrophe, and each published a volume of poetry. Professor Ralph Barton Perry wrote tirelessly and demonstrated brilliantly the part which a philosopher can play in arousing a nation to an understanding of the application of philosophical ideas in the building of sound morale and the furthering of rational and effective action in war. Professor Piston won new successes as a composer. The University administration helped vastly by continuing to make promotions and new appointments and the departments employed visiting lecturers, such as Aaron Copland in music, Irwin Edman in philosophy, and Granville Barker in literature, to fill temporarily some of the gaps left by Harvard scholars who were absent in government service. Nor did the curriculum remain static. New courses were offered, and new departmental programs set up. In the German Department, instruction in Swedish language and literature was revived, very inadequately to be sure, but pre- sumably with good auguries for the future. The English De- partment overhauled its program of study for the Ph.D., a measure affecting immediately only graduate students, but Composer Walter Piston, winner of the 1947 Pulitzer Prize for his Third Symphony, goes over a passage with Dr. Archibald Davison, an authority on choral music. 4401

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and Wlilasaphy one of them stopped its work and in many the difficult times furnished an incentive for reappraisals of the soundness of their methods and aims. The students, in spite of the new burdens they had to shoulder and in spite of what often looked like ofhcial indifference, persisted in their loyalty to the humanities. Men carrying full war service programs, strug- gling with unfamiliar subjects, and working at top speed to fit themselves for military usefulness, somehow found time to include in their over-filled schedules courses in literature, philosophy, and music. Some of them completed their training for commissions in technical branches of the Army or Navy and still managed to finish the work for honors in humane fields of Concentration. For many it seemed as though they were being given their last chance. Ahead was war, chaos, perhaps death. It was now or never if they were EO get what they wanted in college, and for many of them what they wanted most was to be found only in the humanities. They saw more clearly than some of their elders that winning the war meant little or nothing unless they knew how to make the most of eventual peace. The writer of Harvard Today in the 1943 Album saw the point and stated it excellently. He ended his summary of the Harvard which the Classes of Philosopher Ralph Barton Perry, an expert on the theory. of values, carried on the tradition of Royce, Santayana, and William james, He retired in 1946. One of the first to recognize the Nazi menace, his latest book is One World in the Making. By Kenneth B. Murdock, Professor of English 1943 and 1944 had known, by characterizing 1939 as a year of fear, 1941 as one of challenge, and 1942 as one dedicated to intellectual action, and he declared that the power of thingy must no longer masquerade as the power of ic!ea.r, that ideas are . . . necessary to create and protect democracy, and that students can not fight or live without faiths. They could not fight or live with the old faiths and so must live with new ones produced and remodeled from the old. There were many, like the transplanted professor in uniform, who would have dismissed this, either cynically or with regret as for a dream too fair to grasp. With a war to fight, guns and machines, mathematics and electronics, tech- nical skills and physical prowess, were plainly useful and necessary, how could as good a case be made for literature, painting or music? Ideas, perhaps, were wanted, but only of the sort which in laboratories, drafting rooms, and staff head- quarters, produced stronger explosives, more accurate range- finders, or more deadly strategic devices. There were many who foresaw the giving up of the humr nities in colleges and everywhere else except as an ornamentation of life and a way of escape from important affairs, innocent no doubt but tolerable only as amusement after serious work was done. One of the youngest men ever to hold the coveted Boylston Chair of Rhetoric and Oratory, Theodore Spencer died unex- pectedly in january, 1949. He was a well-known poet and Shakespearean scholar. 139 l

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Director of the Glee Club and Professor of Music, G. Wallace Woodworth frequently conducts the Boston Symphony. likely to have repercussions on undergraduate training in the Held. The Department of Classics undertook to find new ways Of relating its work to that of other areas and of arousing interest among students specializing in other subjects. Fine Arts set up a new type of departmental examination and Music Completely remodelled its curriculum, winning new students by the change. On the graduate level Romance Languages recognized two kinds of specialization, one in linguistics and one in literary history and criticism, thereby accepting a prin- ciple sure to be reflected in undergraduate instruction. Perry Miller's promotion to a professorship of American literature represented the first use of that title at Harvard and was an ofiicial recognition of the importance of the study of our native writers in current liberal education. A new department of Comparative Literature, planned for during several years, was officially established in 1947, to supplement the work already being done in literary and linguistic fields. These are only a few of the items in the record of the past half-dozen years which demonstrate that individuals and departments in hu- mane fields at Harvard have not been idle. In spite of all the handicaps ofa troubled time they have shown their confidence in those fields and have done much to provide opportunities for students in them. The Quest for Ideas and Faiths Their confidence has been abundantly justified. The transplanted professor who was so despairing in 1942 is now teaching again and the students who throng his classes are doing work on a level of seriousness and intelligence rare in his experience. Other teachers and hosts of other students are devoting themselves to a quest for the ideas and faiths 4411 WALTER CLARK Wztlvs Proft-ssurufSuli:1kri!. RAPHAEL DEMOS Alford Profs-ssnr of Nntiuritl Religion Mural Pliilosnpliy mul Civil Polity MARCEL FRANCON Asruuw. Prof. nf l rc-uc-li l.itcrul.uri' WILLIAM CHASE GREENE Profm-ssor of Uri-uk und Latin ALBERT J. GUERARD Associate l'rofv:4:mr of lixxglirill JOHN PHILLIPS COOLIDGE Assoi-:mv l'rnfvssnr of lfim- Arg., Dire:-for uf Fngg Art lxluspml, l IRVING FINE Assistimt l'rol'vssor of Music HENRY A. FROST l'rofi-ssorufAr1'l1iti'1'tl1r1- WALTER GROPIUS 1'ruf4-sr-lor of :hl 1'lllll'i1i-llI'0 ROBERT HILLYER Boylston l'rnl'i-sz-mr nf Omtnry und lllu-tnric Cllesigncd 10453