MUTED TRUMPETS

What might well have been just another list of names has been turned from water to wine, and the announcement of appointments to the Faculty for next year, released for this morning, bears in letters of shining light the touch of President Conant's administration.

Reading between the lines of the list of appointments, one sees at a glance the fingers of the President picking and choosing, searching and finding for Harvard new men to fill the positions that will rapidly become vacant as the older members of the Faculty retire. And not from the mossy folds of Harvard's Alumni Directory are these men chosen but from institutions scattered far and wide over the United States. It is a group of young men who have already proven their ability to make names for themselves in their chosen fields and who have established brilliant records in their work.

It appears to be but another step in the formation from the bottom--for the most part, these men will be instructors--of the new Harvard Faculty that is to replace the one which is soon to be a thing of the past. It is the foundation stone for the new revision. Perhaps, to some, the significance of 20-odd appointments may seem slight, but even such a minute addition as this, since it is a concentration of outsiders indicates that President Conant will not be satisfied with graduates of Harvard College alone. He has taken the world as his province.

The new administration has started to accomplish its work and it has done it silently and efficiently. The wheels have begun to turn but the movement is made without wasted commotion. The simple announcement of a list of names follows in a mute procession the other changes that have been brought about within the University since September. It remains to be seen whether or not the steps are in the right direction but the usual rumblings of University machinery have been absent. The shelvings and the appointments have been perpetrated with ruthless composure.