Harvard University - Red Book Yearbook (Cambridge, MA)

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Itis not every year that can be given a label. One could, for instance, hardly identify 1949-50 as the year that first saw Lamont, or that last saw Art Valpey. These were important events but they made more stir on the front pages of the Crim- son than in everyday life at college. The same can be said of most years. By and large one year at Harvard is just like the next, though the specific news events may be entirely different. Most of the important changes of atmospherwwhich are taking place all the time as any twenty-iifth re- unioner will he only too glad to tell youeare gradual long-range ones. Only rarely does a big change occur right out in the open where every- one can see it. Only rarely, therefore, can one give a label to a year at Harvard. But 1950-51 was one of those rare years. 1950-51 was the year that the draft first came to roost on Harvard. V One can, of course, exaggerate the effect the draft had on the college. Life went on pretty much as usual: few men rushed off to enlist in term- time, and few men subscribed to the theory, why- study-when-youHe-going-to-be-drafted-soon tthough as many as ever. subscribed to the equally com- pelling argument, why-study-when-you-can-have-a beer-in-Jimlsl. The wave of applied fatalism which was said to be sweeping over the college youth of America, did not sweep over that per tion of American youth resident in Cambridge. But, although the draft did not have much effect on the actual way of life at Harvard, it did have a considerable effect on ways of thought. For some, particularly seniors, the draft was little more than a dinner-table topic of l'lever-failing interest, and

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THE YEAR 3l5 . . .

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a big worry. It dichft zltTect their idea of college very much because they knew they would be de- ferred at least until the end of the year, and alter that they would no longer be undergraduates. But for the remainder of the undergraduates, draft was more than a question of whether they could get a good fat desk job, though that aspect was not exactly neglected. T0 the freshman, the sopho- more, and the junior, the ramifications of the draft were far-reaching. College no longer seemed to be what it used to be, a four-year resting point on the road between youth and adulthood, a sort of hiatus in Which one could enjoy most of the pleasures of maturity with practically none of the responsibilities. In this old view, college had walls around it, was 21 distinct period 01' life to be enjoyed t0 the full before one cast a thought to what was to follow. The effect of the draft was to break down the bar- riers which separated college life from the rest of life and to merge the two. Now a man might be plucked into the army after a year or two in col- lege, and then returned after two years in the services. Or he might be given a test and escape for the duratiou of his studies. 01' he might have to remain in the top of his class to keep out of the services. Or this, or that. And what might happen to one was a minor problem compared to hunmn element. what one should do for oneself. Should one get married quickly, and start breeding children as a bulwark against General Hershey? Should one join the ROTC? Should one join a reserve unit, or a national guard unit? Should one start study- ing Mongolian in hopes of getting an Intelligence job? All these thoughts have had, and will continue for an indefinite number of years to have, a power- ful effect on the atmosphere of the college. They tend to push the undergraduate out into the world at an earlier age, to make college a subdivision of the outside world instead of a world unto itself. One can no longer attach so much importance to choosing a field of concentration, or a House, if one may any month he snatched up and sent to Some people,s Lamonteslressing books which emphasized the