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In the Harkness office last week secretaries shooed away newshawks with their employer's rigid formula: Edward S. Harkness does not talk to the Press. But Lawrenceville's enthusiastic young Headmaster Allan Vanderhoeft Heely, who came from Andover two years ago to succeed the late Mather Almon ("The Bott") Abbott, told a story calculated to excite the envy of any U. S. educator. Benefactor Harkness had given $7,000,000 to Exeter for a Conference Plan, besides budgetary lifts to Andover, Hill, Choate. He had not thought of Lawrenceville until Headmaster Heely, after plotting unsuccessfully to get an introduction, seized the bull by the horns by marching straight into the Harkness office. How much, calmly asked Mr. Harkness, did Lawrenceville want? Twelve days later Headmaster Heely returned with his sleek head full of ideas, got Edward S. Harkness' promise to erect and endow a new administration building, split two old classroom buildings into 49 conference rooms fitted out with oval tables, easy chairs and rugs, hire enough new teachers to make the Plan work.
Alumni guessed that Lawrenceville's changes would cost $3,000,000. Headmaster Heely did not worry, confident that whatever they cost would be paid by Benefactor Harkness, who rarely sets sums in advance, likes to keep a friendly eye on his projects, suggest an improvement now & then himself.
*Yale's Gothic Harkness Memorial Quadrangle, now split into two Yale colleges, was the gift of his mother, Anna M. Richardson Harkness.