BUSINESS CONTACTS

No legal compulsion, but a moral responsibility has Harvard to share her peerless facilities for dispensing knowledge with the general public. University Hall, realizing this, has boldly ventured into the field of adult education with such projects as the public distribution of the American History Reading List and the broadcast of significant faculty lectures.

But of all Harvard's offspring, the Business School has shown itself most keenly cognizant of this amorphous duty to society: here, specifically, responsibility to scatter information and advice in the practical business world. To this end it has an established program, the principal instruments of which are the informal week-end discussion groups which have met during the past few years. To these industrial house-parties come the invited representatives of prominent firms, who meet together to confer on some large industrial problem. They listen to the views of Harvard professors and other business experts on the latest developments in commerce and production, hear the philosophies and arguments of opposing sides in current business controversies. They discuss and debate among themselves, attempting to formulate their own opinions. They take time out from the mechanical pursuit of their daily business routines to think objectively on vital matters.

The motives of the Business School are not wholly altruistic. It, too, benefits from these forums, which enable its professors to feel the pulse of the practical world of affairs. And it gains valuable prestige, as well as contacts which will aid its graduates, may aid its endowment.

The example of the Business School merits the respectful consideration of other graduate schools, as well as the college. If they are not able to duplicate such a plan, they should certainly strive in other ways to throw out more lines to the mainland which is the general public. By scattering intellectual seeds abroad, they can make a valuable contribution to the life of the nation. And, to argue on a lower plane, they may also heighten their own towers.