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

HANDS OFF

NO WRITER ATTRIBUTED

In the interests of historical accuracy, it is perhaps well that Professor Samuel Eliot Morison should begin investigating the authenticity of Harvard's multitudinous insignia. Posterity will no doubt delight in learning that the University letterhead was filched from a Newtowne vintner, or that the proud heraldry of the Weatmorly windows is merely the unacknowledged issue of a brandy label.

But there is one point on which Professor Morison must employ his most cautious tread. One of the loveliest sages of modern Harvard is that involving the selection of the Lowell House coat of arms, and Mr. Coolidge's perturbation when he was informed that his House sailed beneath a spinster's colors. Perhaps this is not so. But Professor Morison, whatever he may wreak upon windows or upon letterheads, ought not to profane it. Clearly it has that large glamor of the grotesque which comes only too infrequently and which is over to be cherished.

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

Tags