(See front cover)
On October 28, 1636 the General Court of Massachusetts Bay Colony "agreed to give 400£ towards a schoale or colledge." Already a committee has been appointed for the celebration of the 300th birthday of Harvard University, oldest, richest, proudest in the land.
A milestone more significant for Harvard was reached last year when Abbott Lawrence Lowell, aged 76, stepped down from his 24-year presidency. And a more fruitful time for educational stock-taking arrived last week when James Bryant Conant, the 40-year-old chemistry professor who succeeded to the big paneled office in University Hall, revealed in his first annual report to its Board of Overseers the new course which Harvard hopes to steer through the years ahead.
Began President Conant: "An eventful and significant epoch in Harvard history has closed." That epoch dated back to 1909 when Charles William Eliot turned over to President Lowell a Harvard faculty unrivaled in intellectual prestige. Under the ambitious, Aladdin-like administration of President Lowell Harvard grew big and rich. Its faculty swelled from 600 to 1,692, its student body from 4,000 to 8,000, its endowment from $20,000,000 to $126,000,000. New buildings mushroomed—libraries, dormitories, museums, laboratories. On the human side, President Lowell's heart was with his undergraduates and he wanted to shape them in his own pattern—cultured, public-spirited and, if possible, scholarly gentlemen of Boston.
To achieve his end President Lowell laid well-marked paths through the maze of Harvard's free elective system. He introduced tutors and comprehensive examinations. He drew freshmen from their scattered lodgings into the communal life of Georgian dormitories near the Charles River. Finally in 1928 a gift of $13,000,000 from Edward Stephen Harkness allowed him to fulfill a longtime dream. By splitting his unwieldy body of upperclassmen into seven residential Houses he hoped to restore the fellowship of student and student, student and teacher, which small, oldtime Harvard had possessed.
No one doubted that President Lowell, an able political scientist,* held scholarship in high regard. Almost his last official act was to establish a Society cf Fellows wherein 24 young superscholars may seek knowledge free from academic or financial care. But thoughtful Harvardmen began to grow uneasy as the Lowell regime lengthened. Columbia was drawing ahead in this department, Chicago in that, Wisconsin in another. Old Harvard faculty giants—Royce, James, Palmer, Norton, Santayana—were dead or retired. Kittredge, Lowes, Copeland, Hocking, Perry were getting on. Where were the men to replace them? President Lowell retired with that question unanswered.
President. Boston has heard two versions of James Bryant Conant's accession to Harvard's presidency. Most Harvardmen believe that the university's governing Corporation listed faculty eligibles, cast about the country for non-Harvard opinion on them, was overwhelmed by praises of Conant. Outsiders say that the Corporation was definitely disturbed at Harvard's waning intellectual prestige, wanted a vigorous, young devotee of scholarship to restore and strengthen it.