POLICY AND PURPOSES

Three months ago President Conant in his first annual report informed the American educational world that his chief objective was to advance learning. Friday night he said to a group of New England Harvard Clubs "I do not subscribe to the philosophy that a man should work his way through college." These two statements unquestionably indicate a definite and very real departure from the programs of Mr. Eliot and Mr. Lowell. Rather than "make scholarship honorable" and prepare students to cope with the problems of society, it is obviously more important to Mr. Conant that the University shall receive the country's most brilliant young men, regardless of their pecuniary circumstances, and shall inspire these young men with "an enthusiasm for creative scholarship and a respect for the accumulated intellectual treasures of the past." Mr. Conant's concern for the forgotten scholar has already brought about the creation of five prize fellowships designed to tap social and geographical areas not now drawn upon. It is certain that this is but a beginning of the President's plans.

Perhaps his idealistic aims are intrinsically commendable. Perhaps a model university would be one in which a group of intellectual prodigies lived together, incessantly endeavoring to advance the learning of the world. Indeed, it may be reasonably argued that the graduate schools, especially those in the fields of science, should be of this nature. But Harvard College has always been a different sort of institution. It has been a place where young men of a certain degree of intelligence, provided they met some financial requirements, might pursue a liberal education, meet and associate with men of their own class, and prepare themselves for responsible positions in society. These purposes President Conant cannot ignore without opposition.