Of Books and the Veteran

John Harvard, veteran, has reason to wonder at the palace on the Charles these days. Prewar registration days were a far cry from the maddening crowd that thundered through Memorial Hall on the first leg of their pursuit of a formal education. Course attendance ballooned to new levels as cozy discussion courses became monstrous lecture courses. House dining halls continued to look like Army mess halls. Laundry salesmen and cleaning contractors, once frenetic in their hunt for prospects, assumed an unbecoming coyness. As for getting books, John found texts unobtainable and the lines interminable. In fact, John found lines everywhere.

But, although education was no longer as comfortable as it had once seemed, it had become more important. And the returning veteran found that the administration and the faculty of the University had, in most cases, done their utmost to facilitate and ease his reconversion problems. Queueing for an education was a novelty for the college but no new matter for him after the past years. Harvard 'quarters' were still infinitely preferable to the GI variety. He had very few grounds for complaint.

One source of irritation is the book question again. Returning veterans are authorized $250 per term, under Public Law 346, to defray costs of tuition, fees, and books. for veterans at Harvard studying under the four course plan, fees and tuition generally necessitate the expenditure of $200 or $215 of the allotted sum, leaving the remainder for the purchase of books. In many courses, however, reading lists are assigned as usual, but the veteran in not required to purchase any books--i.e. is not 'authorized' to receive any from the government educational program. In other courses, instructors "require" only the purchase of a syllabus while still demanding the study of a lengthy reading list.

Such procedure places an unnecessary strain on both the veteran's pocketbook and the University library system. The summer term recently completed indicated the shortage of many of the texts most in demand. Unable to obtain textbooks through University or House library sources, veterans were forced to by "unauthorized" but required texts with their own resources, thus adding to the cost of their Harvard education. It will be regrettable if, because of thoughtlessness or carelessness, the experience of the summer term is repeated.