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Man. Last spring trustees of Roxbury (Mass.) Latin School were on the hunt for a new headmaster. They decided to inspect Alumnus James Bryant Conant, invited him out for a speech. Professor Conant went, spoke. Roxbury trustees looked, listened, decided that Professor Conant, reserved, stiff-bodied, boyish-looking, with no jot of showmanship, no trace of "Harvard accent," definitely would not do. Few weeks later Professor Conant was elected president of Harvard.
That was not the first time Roxbury had turned James Conant down. Only an indignant plea by his mother got him admitted as a student in 1906. He had flunked his entrance examination in spelling. No infant prodigy, he did not learn to read until he was seven. But soon after that he was brewing malodorous compounds in a makeshift laboratory labeled: "Only two persons allowable in shop at a time." He insisted on going to Roxbury, against his parents' vote for more fashionable Milton, because it had a friendly science master named Newton Henry Black. Master Black is now assistant professor of physics at Harvard and its president's great & good friend.
James Conant passed his Harvard entrance examinations in 1910 with A's in physics and mathematics, a B in chemistry, D's in history and English. First two years he lived at famed Miss Mooney's at No. 5 Linden St., hard by Hasty Pudding which he was not asked to join. No grind, he worked hard but quickly, spent most of his hours in the laboratory. But he found time to help edit the Crimson, dance with the "Baby Brats" at famed Brattle Hall. He did not seek popularity and few of his classmates, including Junius Spencer Morgan, Sumner Welles, Nicholas Roosevelt, Gilbert Seldes, noticed the shy, towheaded, unprepossessing youngster from Dorchester. Those who did became his fast friends, won by a quick, appealing smile, a quiet humor and good sense.
In Junior year he broadened out, joined Signet, helped found Harvard's chapter of Alpha Chi Sigma chemical fraternity. Delta Upsilon made him its president. In 1913, aged 20 and a year ahead of his class, he was graduated magna cum lande with a brilliant record in chemistry.
A summer in Philadelphia's Midvale Steel plant decided him against a career in industrial chemistry. Back to Harvard he went for a Ph. D., a year of teaching. Then War came. War-hating son of war-hating parents, James Conant promptly marched to Washington to enlist in the ranks. A scientific friend called him a "blithering idiot," turned him over to the Chemical Warfare division in which he became a major at 25. He developed the process by which the A. E. F. was supplied with mustard-gas. Later, in "The Mousetrap," an old motor factory near Cleveland surrounded by barbed wire and mystery, he worked 18 hr. a day, slept in his laboratory, managed his jittery subordinates with tact and understanding. Too late for use in the War he perfected a laboratory process for manufacturing sinister, superdeadly Lewisite gas. His two sons, aged 10 and 7, have never seen their father's uniform, never heard from him his War record.