Harvard University - Red Book Yearbook (Cambridge, MA)

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270 DELMAR LEIGHTON Dean ef ?re.s'n1nen fer his nnderstnnehng gnidanee and ine genuine interest ne has sneufn in ine Elnss ef 1948

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6 1948 Harvard The First and Hardest We look back in amused wonder- ment at our first few days in Cambridge when in utter confusion we became an official part of Harvard College. It all began on June 30, a sweltering Friday morning with the temperature hovering around ninety-five degrees. First there was registration: Memorial Hall, the long tables, and the mountainous stacks of cards to be filled out. We repeatedly forgot to print and to put our last names first. Then came the English A Antici- patory lfxamination, the placement tests, the reading test, the swimming test, and the step test. Advice was heaped upon us by every one from Dean Hanford to Joe Keezer, while nebulous undergraduate or- ganizations went about easing our minds and pocketbooks of a great load. Desper- ately, but in vain, we sought a secure foot- ing in our new bewildering existence. After a day or two, however, this first spasm of activity waned, and we turned our attentions to people and places. Names as yet were unassoeiated with faces 5 f1l1C1'C were merely rumors bruitod about the entries: so-and-so was a mental phenomenon, or whatls-his-name could drink three jiggers of whiskey straight.. The bleak rooms of the Houses needed decorating, and the works of Rembrandt, Dali, and Pettyer artists were put in place. Then came the selection of courses. The more naive of us turned to the so-called Freshman adviser, only to be bullied into taking classes in his department. But those more seasoned in scholastic strata- gems read and reread the catalogue to find some course besides English A which was open to Freshmen and at the same time had meetings only twice a week. Then suddenly the term began in earnest, the doors of somber Sever Hall swung open to engulf us, and we plunged into ltIarvard's immutable Freshman cur- riculum. First and foremost among the courses was English A. During'the first semester a theme was due at Warren House every week, a gruelling six hundred words that we1'e typed right up to the five o'cloek Monday afternoon deadline. 'llhere were the usual topics: an autobiography, po- litical and nature themes, and a library assignment which represented the only work some of us ever did in Widener. Papers during the second term were fewer