Harvard University - Red Book Yearbook (Cambridge, MA)

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IQ -1948 IICL7'?7CL7'lZ Do you prefer to date the same or diferent girls? In Our Opinion One could hardly imagine a group ol' people more normal than the Class ol' ISHS. The returns ol' the Klip BOOK poll ofthe .Iuly and November Freshmen reveal a man faithfully typical of the average student in almost any college in the coun- try. Indeed, so colorless is the overall impression that one is lcd to wonder where the unusual llarvard graduates come from. The Class ol' '48 is serious-minded: its members spend more hours studying than they do wasting time, they have an intellectual approach to world allairsg they take a real interest in the college and its policies, they have moderate abilities and moderate ambitions. But at the same time they are shallow, dullishly practical, and just a trifle under-sophisticated. Girls and movies are their favorite entertain- mentg they enjoy the funny papers but avoid the opera, and without the least qualm harbor the common prejudices of the day. But in addition to this colorless cent1'al tendency there is also some wide variation, and in this variation lies what- ever is distinctive in the Class and College. O O O Probably the most significant ques- tion ol' any college poll concerns scholastic records. The group ranking of the Class of '48 corresponds fairly closely with that of former Freshman Classes. Group I C4 NSD 2'Z, Group II K2 Nsg 2 B'sJ SW, Group III KB ave.j ZOW, Group IV C2 l3'sg 2 C'sD 2292, Groups V QC ave.j 2795 Group VI C3 C'sg 1 Dj HW, Group VII CI'robntionJ TZ, The Class median falls at the bottom of Group IV, with a record of about two B-'s and two C-'s. According to the poll, 462, of the Class prepared at public high schools, 31 W, at private boarding schools, and 2395 at private day schools. Private day school men compiled the highest scholastic aver- age with their median lying just below Group III, contrasted with the public school and boarding school groups, each of which averaged low in Group IV. Forty-tive per cent of the Class chose Harvard because of its high scholastic standing, IIIZ, because Father did, IOCZ, because it was near Boston, and QW to

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F1-eslwnan Red Book ll. their Sophomore year. The Class of 1948 could now be a unit only in name, but never again in fact. Yet as the Freshman was five years ago, so is he today. The good old days oi' 'tbefo' the wah are really underneath little dilierent. Today the navy students march and countermareh in their bloodless battles in the yard to the rollicking rhythm of A-dil-ee-ip 2-3--ll Hip-2-3-4 ! But now, as always, the Freshman status is the same. Lounge lizards we still could be at noon, or night il' we so desired. We could rise listen to the radio, go to a show club, or simply indulge in the boisterous deviltry of youth. We were sensitive in spite of our sell'-confidence, a trifle careless and a trifle lazy. Although we were awake occasionally as long after the lights were lit as during the daytime, we failed to do all that was expected of us. A little exercise, some studying, and a good deal of loafmg and fun-that was about what we did during our Freshman year. We went through one oi' the most crucial pe- 1'iods of our lives, and yet we shall probably , 451' T Wgigi, '1Hopc I didn't wake you up remember it, not for its significance, but for the little things it brought-the thrill of our first Harvard cheer or the pleasant warmth of spring in the Yard. Little things, very intimate and very vivid, but things in which we shall always retain the charm and humanity of our first-and most memorable-year at college. C'est la guerre L CIGARETTES SORRY

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rank list. FfI'0SlL7llClll Red Book lf! meet people worth knowing. However, only 70W preferred llarvard above other colleges. on wanted to go to Yale, WZ, to M. I. T., 3fZ, to Dartmouth, and several wistfully named Wellesley. Confessed one man, I didn't want to go at all, but my parents made me. The yearly income of most of the families of the Class was well above any rank shows the expected decrease in self- confidence toward the lower end of the sort of national average. llnder 552,500 WZ, it 2,500-fra 3,750 iw, :s,750- 5,000 iw, 5,000- 7,500 zow, 7,500- 10,000 l5'Z7 i0,000- 20,000 uw 20,000- 50,000 em, Over 5l'550,000 WZ, Groups I K II 7,000 Group III 5,500 Group IV 5,000 Group V 3,500 Groups Vl tb VII 3,000 As to fathers' occupat ions, l inanf'e HSM, cl0llll110l'0C MVK, Manufacturing l2'h, Medicine l2'Z, Law HW, Although not everyone filled in this ques- tion, there were enough answers to indicate that the Class median was somewhat above 350000. It is interesting to compare these results with those computed from the question, What do you think your yearly income will be ten years after graduation ? Almost without exception men from fami- lies with incomes of less than SHS5000 thought they would do at least as well and probably much better than Dad, while men from higher-bracket families tended the other way. One fourth of the fllass considered fif5000 their i055 income, while the median was about flf5300. f'orrelation with group How often do you go to the movies? A rancher, fiorist, pianist-compose!, inc motion picture director were also repre- sented. One understanding person wrote, Father has eight children, poor soul, and that's enough to keep any man occupied. Among the 85W of the students who had tentatively decided upon a career, scien- tific fields Q20'Z,j were the most popular, medicine fl5'Z,D was second, law Cl0fZ,j third. Very few men wanted to follow in their parents' footsteps. Only WZ, planned to enter finance, commerce, or manufactur- ing as against the -HW, of the fathers who were in these fields. The only person who came right out and admitted he wanted his dad's job was the son of a dollar-a-year man. ln regard to world problems, the f'lass is both practical and markedly lib- eral. 02',Z, thought the Big Three or liig lfive should have more to say 4 about the peace than the other nations, and saw. believed that the postwar world should be effectively policed by the United States and her Allies. This interna- tionalism was confirmed in the C'lass's preference for eration f33'Z,j or an actual world federation with a strict self-determination fort. either a world-wide confed- strong central government f32fZ,j, Only WZ, were for with a minimum of co- 7 operative international ef-