News

In Fight Against Trump, Harvard Goes From Media Lockdown to the Limelight

News

The Changing Meaning and Lasting Power of the Harvard Name

News

Can Harvard Bring Students’ Focus Back to the Classroom?

News

Harvard Activists Have a New Reason To Protest. Does Palestine Fit In?

News

Strings Attached: How Harvard’s Wealthiest Alumni Are Reshaping University Giving

ROYAL PREROGATIVES

NO WRITER ATTRIBUTED

The influence which alumni sentiment exerts on the policies of a university is as constant as it is often omnipotent. Distinctly an indigenous development, this force represents a form of graduate regency which is perennially decried by those who find its weight so irksome that they can see only its occasional misapplications.

In a delightfully humorous article entitled "The Divine Right of the Alumni", appearing in the current Independent, Mr. Frederick L. Allen '12 pictures a loyal alumnus cherishing a fond affection for an alma mater he no longer understands and blundering incompetently about without exercising "a cubic millimeter of his brain." There are many men who help to create alumni opinion in just the manner Mr. Allen describes, though such a portrait is more caricature than a likeness. Amusing as the picture is, there is always a basis of truth in satire; and undergraduates who later will swell the great body of alumni will do well to reflect on the matter lest they in turn may offer a target for well-directed, if kindly, arrows.

Want to keep up with breaking news? Subscribe to our email newsletter.

Tags