Three Twenty Two

In twenty-five years some old Harvard grad, vintage '58, will putter about his library until he finds a musty purple volume on the bottom shelf of a bookcase. He will flip a few pages, and then, with an arm about his son and a finger next to his picture, the old grad will declare, "By gum, there's your old man."

At that mellow stage in life, the member of the Class of '58 will probably have forgotten that the Yearbook seemed pretty bad when it first appeared. He will have forgotten that the photography was none too good, the event coverage none too complete, and the feature writing none too palatable. With the passage of time, such failings are forgotten. In the meantime, however, they are rather annoying.

Since the average "reader" of the Yearbook gets no further than the pictures, it seems worthwhile to begin a review of Three Twenty Two with a few words about the book's uneven level of photographic achievement. The high-points are some very nice portraits of professors and several pictures best described as "moody." There are many candidates for the low-point, but the worst would seem to be the PBH photographs that appear to have been taken through a bowl of split pea soup. Many other photographs are out of focus, poorly lit, and just plain dull. (Not to mention the upside-down shot on page 231.) One of the most annoying technical failures of the Yearbook photographers is their apparent inability to decide what constitutes a true black--had they made decent prints from their negatives, photographs with varying contrasts (from smoky grey to murky black) would not appear side by side.

Many readers will be undismayed by the photography and will flip the pages until they come to the generally tolerable House features. The article on Dudley is especially well written, while the Dunster House feature is too gung-ho even for Dunster House. If the reader can get past the authors who have an axe or two to grind and the writers who try too hard to prove they are talented, he will probably thumb his way to the back of the book and the articles on extra-curricular activities.

After a brief glance at the pictures in this section, it becomes painfully apparent that Yearbook photographers were unable to cover the year's events adequately. If an activity receives several pages of pictures, it means that a photographer happened to be present, rather than that the activity deserved extended coverage. For example, there are three photographs for The Master Builder, including one of a page and a half, and none of the Hasty Pudding Show.

The prose coverage of the year's activities is probably more objectionable than the photographic. In a major lapse, there is no mention of the Program for Harvard College. The 150th anniversary of the Pierian Sodality is all but passed by and the 100th anniversary of the Glee Club does not fare much better. Such errors of omission, however, are almost matched by the errors committed in the realm of editorializing. Three Twenty Two is seriously marred by the inability of the editors to limit themselves to reviewing and analyzing the previous year. Rather than limit themselves to the role of a Yearbook, they attempt to create a Book of Judgement, passing on the value of anything available. This is especially unfortunate since their judgements are bad. For example, the section on the Lampoon declares, "With the return of Thresky the Golden Ibis to his perch above the building, the Poonsters launched into a year which saw the return of high quality humor to the magazine."

The coverage of athletic events is good, although the football pictures could have been better and the hockey pictures are both grey and puck-less. The articles cover the events well, sometimes colorfully. There are a few inaccuracies which could have been avoided (In the indoor track article, the "long-standing Harvard record" referred to was set the year before and "the record-breaking 50-second quarter" is hardly record-breaking).

Probably the only readers who get past the activities coverage to the feature articles are reviewers and Yearbook editors. This seems somewhat sad, since a great deal of effort and space was spent on these sections. The opening feature on "The House System and Harvard College" is a competently written, thoroughly researched study. The next one, on ROTC, is dull, confusing, and rather unimportant. "The Creative Artist" is well written and interesting, although some personal details and quotations from the artists would have helped considerably. The scholarships article is clearly written, but lists nary a dollars and cents figure and makes no mention of the loan program. The Student Employment story is trivial, and might well have been condensed into the scholarship story that had too many pictures anyhow. The "Jazz" article never gets with it, either in terms of music, style, or personalities. The "Harvard Science" feature begins like a melodramatic parody of Time magazine--"It was the year of the rocket. . . . It was the year of the sputnik. . ." The science item is rather confusing and its most distinctive trait is a number of large pictures of dull grey buildings.

The feature on teaching fellows that opens the faculty section barely bothers to review, or even to analyze. Rather, it plunges into some naive proposals for abolishing teaching fellows. An editorial has no place in a yearbook now, and will seem even more out of place twenty-five years hence. The Radcliffe story, in dialogue form, is a good try for creativity, but it fails. At the back of Three Twenty Two is the Yearbook's magazine "Cambridge 38." The article on professionalism raises an interesting and possibly serious problem, but its failure to define professionalism (is it a concern for money? ends? or is it merely success?) is unfortunate. The section on "Harvard's Split Personality" (the College dedicated to citizens vs. the University dedicated to scholars) shows understanding, research, and a clear style. The feature on professors with-more-than-25-years-at-Harvard suffers from an excess of statistics and a shortage of personal details.

All in all, Three Twenty Two suffers from too much editorializing and feature writing and too little respect for the basic tasks of a yearbook--thorough coverage of the events and trends of the previous year in words and pictures. The edition, nevertheless, represents a considerable amount of work, no mean amount of ambition, an improvement over the previous year, the passage of time, and the arrival of another yearbook.