In Retrospect

After four years of swimming in a national gold-fish bowl, it is easy for the casual undergraduate to grow as indifferent to the changes within his Cambridge world as to development without. Perhaps, therefore, our readers will pardon the CRIMSON editors' annual urge to review the past year's developments before they depart from their note-pad pinnacle for more academic file cards. Our only conclusion at such close range can be that it has been a good year for historians and for sorcerers, and that it has been a year of expansion.

Although history is said to repeat herself anyway, President Pusey and the overseers seemed determined that she not forget Harvard this year. An Ancient Historian by trade, the president has pointed to the College's past, shown that it has grown by fifty men annually during the last century, and has concluded that it could do so again in the future. Untutored in mathematics, we felt that the times have changed and that the fact of past expansion has little to do with possibilities for future growth.

Leaving the past to President Pusey, Dean Bundy occupied himself with the future. Knowingly, he predicted a tuition rise last October. Lo and behold, in January the prediction came true, as tuition rose to $1000 for next year. We congratulated Dean Bundy for his oracular powers, and suggested that perhaps tuition should have risen even higher--simultaneously, of course, with scholarship aid.

We approved the extension of the Lamont Library hours to midnight. But we were sorry to see that the Student Council, which usually spends much of its time agreeing with the administration, thought that extension of Lamont hours was unnecessary--just one week before Librarian Buck announced the change. It seems the Council jumped on the wrong wave of history this time and got caught in the backwash.

Under the leadership of their new Master and their Senior Tutor, the men at Kirkland House were experimenting. Early in the fall they began a tutorial program for science majors, designed to acquaint budding scientists with the philosophy of their subject. Latest reports have it that they are reading about expanding universes. Even Professorial families may expand to keep pace with the fashion; professors may soon be able to get special grants to educate their children--provided they have children. We agreed with Malthus in approving this kind of growth.

Rising figures, however, were not restricted to the University population nor to her term bills. The local barbers upped their prices to $1.50. Unanimously, we labeled this a Bad Thing, and recommended Central Square.

While thus taking a long, but critical view of the local scene, we inclined to take a dim view of the world in general, Although the CRIMSON's Executive Board was Republican, its Editorial Board remained largely Democratic. Predicted chaos, however, did not arise in this non-election year. The paper managed to steer a moderate course, somewhat to the left of President Eisenhower, and considerably to the right of former President Truman. While we took comparatively few swipes at the president himself, we could not resist his Secretary of State.

Concerning the most pressing national question of all--the alleged "natural superiority of the Ivy League"--we agreed with Holiday Magazine that it was, but thought it wasn't very "Ivy League" to say so.

Thus overlooking many other important events of the twelve months past, we wash the printer's ink from our hands and make our exit, thanking our readers for their interest and for their tolerance.