The University's Loss . . .

The President's change of vocation is doubtlessly a gain for foreign policy. Doubtlessly, too, it is a gain for the President, else he would have refused the job, and on both counts we congratulate him. Yet, for some reason--parochialism, perhaps--we can't avoid dwelling on the loss this involves to education and to the University in particular. Now that liberal arts colleges are sustaining one assault after another, this loss is heavier than one might suspect.

The best way to point this up is to review Conant's record. More than other Harvard presidents, his task has been reconciling education to a new world, a world which began with violent depression and has continued with a running battle among values for public accaim. Where once education neatly divided between seemingly changeless principles and attacks on those principles, attacks as static as their targets, all that has has now changed. The familiar boundaries were swept away in the thirties, replaced by intellectual chaos.

This required a new view of what Harvard should instill in its graduates. The answer, somewhat oversimplified, that has grown up since 1933 or so is simple to state, namely, that Harvard should produce men who can make their own syntheses in life of conflicting values. How much Conant shared in forming this answer is not clear, but it is enough to point out that no such ideal could service a president's indifference, much less his displeasure. That adjustment alone justifies his administration.

How this has been applied is easier to spot. Conant may not have conceived General Education, but without this vigorous support it would have been stillborn. His influence, and that of Provost Buck whom he appointed, on admissions policy and its emphasis on diverse backgrounds and interest, and on the House system, where this diversity is bound up in several units, are two other excellent examples.

In addition, his zeal in fighting off formula-men, a traditional function of Harvard presidents, has had much to do with the spirit of inquiry that abounds at Harvard. This is a more arduous task than one might imagine, for at present the nation's intellectual brew is filled with unusual amounts of dogma and intolerance.

So much for the review, then. That it is piece-meal, that it neglects Conant's part in the University's incredibly sound financing, in creating a workable system for appointments, in reshaping the graduate schools, and in other matters,--all this is obvious. What's been said, however, is enough to prove our point, that Conant has been an excellent president. That is the University's loss.

Because he has been an excellent president, moreover, his opinions are respected not only in his field, but outside it as well, and this has made him as much of a bulwark against wild attacks on education as any man could be. That is the loss to education in general. Whether the gain in foreign affairs is worth these losses remains to be seen.