Harvard University - Red Book Yearbook (Cambridge, MA)

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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-

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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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14- 19 .4 6' II a r 41' a. r cl The question, Do you feel that eventually cap- italism will he replaced lay socialism or eommunism? lxrought very close results. 4694, answered yes, 4521- no, and WZ, were undecided. Sev- eral exelaimed, 'ttlod forbid! and one man vehemently wrote, What the hell do you think has been happening in the past twelve years? The study habits ot' '48 men showed that eollege is still primarily a plaee ot' sehol- arship. The average time spent studying each day, ext-luding elasses and laboratories, was 4-I6 hours, although IUZ, spent under 2, and l0'Z, over Ii. In eorrelatingthis question with group rank, there is the expected de- erease in study time with deerease in rank, Groups I X II averaging 5:lj-hours, Groups VI N VII 35 hours. One man on proba- tion eonfessed that the amount ol' time he spent was too little, too late. In regard to the spare time '48 men had eaeh day, the Illass averaged about IZLQ hours, although 2224, had less than 2, Do you have a private telephone? What aspect of college has done the most for you? and l3'Z, more than 5. Here again there was a correlation with group rank, men on Dean's list having about 2M hours per day, men in Groups V, VI, and VII almost 4 hours. Eighty per cent of the Class pre- ferred to study in their own rooms, 1691, in the library. One amazing student claimed he used a tahle in Hayes Biekford. In listing their three favorite maga- zines, '48 men overwhelmingly supported the Iiuee publications, either Time or Life appearing on 92'Z, of the polls. Life 782, Time MVK, New Yorker 392, lteader's Digest 27fZ, 2l'X, listed Esquire, and 12W the Atlantic illonlhly. The only other p1'ominent fa- vorites wero two weeklies, The Saturday Evening Post C23'Z,j and Collimds C9'Z,Q. A stalwart 0.2'Z, championed the Lampoon. In eontrast to this popularity of the magazines, ISSIZ, ot' the Class during the year read at the most four hooks in addi- tion to those assigned in courses, 30'Z, read none. However, there were excep- tions to this hihliophohia, and one student from South America read nine hooks in l'fnglish, eight in Spanish, and four in Ifreneh. Terry and the Pirates was far and away the most popular comic strip, favored hy 40W, of the Class. Barnaby t12fZ,D,