FACULTY ACQUAINTANCES

How many professors do you know? Except when you were trying to raise your grade, when have you talked to an instructor intimately?

Few men who have not been to a small college can appreciate the value of a close relationship between professor and student. As one of our eminent Harvard graduates has said, "It is worth all the school's cost if the long discipline brings each one of us into living touch with one real instructor, one whose word reaches the soul and creates that hunger of the mind whose satisfaction is our education." Such friendship is of mutual benefit, for it ennobles the student and it humanizes the instructor.

This reciprocal influence we often lack at Harvard. Men in higher courses are likely to receive it, but it does not filter down to the ordinary undergraduate. The advisor system has usually failed to provide it. Other colleges have tried the plan of holding departmental smokers where the teachers can talk informally with their students and where the flow of ideas is unrestricted. This, of course, offers only an opening, which he must follow up.

Among the pieces of advice gratuitously showered on the undergraduate none is more often repeated than that which urges him to select certain courses, regardless of their intrinsic value in his scheme of education, for the sake of listening to some particularly famous member of the Harvard Faculty. If he does so, and does not take the trouble to gain a personal acquaintance with his professor he is failing in half his avowed purpose. Relations of this sort often prove of more value than the actual work of the courses, and by being continued in after life may become a permanent source of inspiration long after the work itself is totally forgotten.

The University teas which occur on Fridays throughout the winter provide an easy avenue to acquaintanceship with one's professors. In the past they have done much to change the traditional attitude of antagonism between student and professor into one of mutual friendliness. Invitations are extended to all members of the University, and all are equally sure of a hospitable welcome. President Lowell's Sunday afternoon receptions for students are also a pleasant means for furthering such relationships. The day is gone when the President is able to bow to everyone he meets in the yard, but each man in college can at some time during his undergraduate days take the opportunity to meet Harvard's president in the agreeably informal atmosphere of one of these receptions.