Harvard University - Red Book Yearbook (Cambridge, MA)

Page 15 text:

Center of the squareecorner of y Mass. and Boylston is more 1 familiar than Mem Hall. seen the beginning of the new era: every man a potential dra'flce. The fact that the Korean crisis arrived when the College was just completing deconversion from World War II added a touch of irony to the situ- ation. In the fall, only 4147 veterans registered in the College; Housemasters were hoping to decon- vert the last of their crowded rooms in the spring; Radcliffe had been successfully integrated into the Harvard educational tnot to speak of its sociaU system. The postwar problems were just about solved when along came a new crisis. Two or three years from now a new crop of veterans will no doubt be returning and the cycle will start again. Almost any way you looked at it this was the Science of the many.

Page 14 text:

'- -n y In y El: ' m :1:- 22:2 2 J 25 -h... 1.5 5- ;1, i J? V garrison Europe or fight in Asia. And further- more one may be inclined, in picking a field of concentration, to pass over an interest in some more exotic subject in favor of one which may lead to draft-exemption. Thus, in many little ways, the draft sidled into our lives, and into the life of Harvard. The Ad- ministration anticipates a considerable drop in enrolment next year; board and room rates have gone up; the Outhouses will probably be closed lthis at least is one good consequence of the draft and the world situationl; henceforth Harvard will play Princeton only in major sports. The Jeremiahs among us could paint a black pic- ture of what Harvard might be like in a few years. Eliot House given over once more to the V-12s, as it was during part of World War II when Pro- fessor Nock was the only civilian in the House, and Eliot men were called, not Elephants, but sailors. Marching to classes. Professors all in Washington. Perhaps even no football. No longer :1: 23 d Li '1' .-I . AM; 1-3: It -,h l 33 .A.. l, f 2 a the pleasure of studying casually and without much of a purpose. The future, fortunately, will not be like this. Short of war, Harvard will not sag much below the level planned for 1951-52, and soon will begin to recoup some of the losses that it expects to suffer during next year. But even the changes planned, when coupled with the personal problems set by the draft, are enough to shake the average under- graduate, to stamp on his mind the distinctiveness of the year 1950-51. The seniors can be thankful that they have squeezed their four undergraduate years into just about the only period of llnormalcy22 at Harvard from 194-1 to the millenium. When they entered in 194-7 they were the first properly postw'ar class, for they were the first class to be mainly non-veteran. They leave now, the last class to have been mainly free of the draft. They saw the end of the old era: crowded classes, veterans wheeling children through the Yard, monster book- lines, and two-hour registrations. They have just

Page 16 text:

year the draft came to Harvard. The Crimson ran countless stories in a game effort to keep the home public up to date on what Congress and the President and General Hershey were doing to its vital interests. Colonel Summerall of the Col- lege ROTC was pushed unwillingly into the lime- light, where his every word became a matter of absorbing interest to a large part of the popula- G. brings home the engravings in record time during Crimson self-improvement campaign. tion. The armed services were included for the first time in the career conferences, though few of the men that attended that particular conference were warmly disposed towards the army as a career. Even the Council launched itself into the turmoil, with a demand that the ROTC unit be brought up to the size of other college units. Men would disappear for days and return with the news that they had been seeing llpeoplel, in Wash- ington. You couldnlt pass a day without hearing something about the draft. But the draft W'asnlt everything. It hovered over the college like a bird of prey, and no one could mistake its shadow on the ground, but since it did not swoop down, everything below went on much as usual. The undergraduate returned in the fall to an incredibly messy room, with an armload of new junk to add to the pile, and a new checkbook. He registered in the now usual two minutes Hat, found the local merchants as cooperative as ever and the course catalogue as uncompromising as ever. The little men who draw up the course schedules had succeeded once again in having all the best courses meet at the same time. It was not surprising that the soon-captioned llKnow Your Enemyll courses were flooded: Social Sciences 111 lChina and Japanl with Professors Fairbanks and Reischaurer, Professor Hopperls Russia and the Far East, Professor Fainsodk Dictatorship, and Mongolian I and its brethren were as popular as any but a few basic courses. They were, however, rivalled by a few exceptions, notably Professor Mac Leishls poetry course; one of his early lec- tures, Mac Leish delivered on the steps of Memo- rial Church to an overflow crowd. There is always something physically new about Cambridge after a summer vacation. 1950 was no exceptionein fact it produced one of the most startling architectural novelties in a long time: the new Graduate Center. Cinderhlock rooms, venetian blinds, rolling book shelves, inclined