Look Around Carefully

Purveyors of stereotypes describe twenty-fifth reunions as the time when old pots catch glimpses of the new look. For classmates of 1928 who have been out of contact with the University since graduation, the new look is evident; Harvard is chock-full of new buildings, new courses, new ideas about education to keep pace with the times. Whether the "old pot" label is as apt this year as before is a moot question--especially since the Corporation has selected a new President from the Class of '28: a man young in both the freshness of his ideas and vigor of his leadership.

But classmates who come back, especially those who live in places where news of Harvard must filter through certain newspapers and columnists, may be expecting another, less pride-provoking change. It has been described in many ways, some unprintable, but the Boston Record summed it up recently when it said, "Harvard is no longer the staunch supporter of the best American traditions it used to be." That Harvard has grown too radical for its traditions is a grave charge, one which every alumnus should want to track down for himself.

If we may make a suggestion, from a few years of daily watch on the University scene, it seems that the traditions and principles guiding the University have changed very little in a hundred, to say nothing of twenty-five years. There is still a premium put on hard, honest and earnest pursuit of truth, to wherever it may lead. There is still a healthy respect for ideas, a vicious competition between them, and a realization that professors are not supermen with super-human responsibilities, but just people, with all the rights and foibles of same. As revered in the lull of 1928 as in the crisis of 1953, these principles are part of a truly conservative tradition of the University, a tradition that makes it even today "calm rising through change and through storm."