The Topsy-Like Growth of the Summer School

The Summer School has had a history like Topsy. It was "nevah borned, it jest grewed." No one truly knows the birth date, no early records exist, and even the memory of first director failed in trying to recollect the first few summers of class instruction.

In spite of this cloudy past, the Harvard Summer School, the oldest in the nation, with 1960 making the 85th consecrative session. Professor Asa Gray started vacation sessions in 1872. For a six-week period, he gave special instruction in Botany, a successful experiment repeated following year by Professor Louis Agassiz. Other members of the Lawrence Scientific School--now part the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences--later offered courses in Chemistry and Geology for their private benefit. Thus the Summer School was born, quietly, unnoticed by his historians or by the outside world.

Summer education in the early years, however, bore little resemblance to the present large-scale venture. Organization was almost completely lacking. No central office directed the program until 1887 or 1888; in one of these years, the Corporation appointed a committee, headed Professor Nathaniel Shaler, to oversee the summer program.

Instructors established courses for their own financial benefit, with the University, in Shaler's words, "giving by the use of the buildings and apparatus, and thus ending its countenance to the project." The catalogue is sparse and riddled with omissions.

Chem I

Perhaps the haphazard character of these early courses explains the lack of historical records. Classes were not then unless sufficient demand existed--and with relatively little publicity and no academic credit for the courses, command and was naturally low. In 1884 and 1885, elementary chemistry was the only summer instruction offered at the University. (Thus, Chem 1, started in 1873, has the longest continuous record of any Summer School Class). 1886 to 1887, Botany, Elementary Chemistry, and Geology constituted the entire offering.

Enrollment naturally stayed at a level as low as the number of courses. Until the formation of the Corporation committee in 1887, the greatest number of students called was 98, in the summer of 1875. A few teachers in the Boston area, a few adults interested in scientific orders, and possibly one or two students ventured to Cambridge in the summer.

Two events steered the educational experiment into modern channels. Recognition by President Charles W. Eliot of the summer session's value brought the formation of the Corporation committee. A somewhat more important event came on May 5, 1891, when the Faculty of Arts and Sciences--the largest faculty in the University--voted course credit for most summer courses. Up to that time, people took courses for enjoyment or to express altruism toward Harvard professors.

A committee thus instituted centralized direction by 1888, while Faculty approval provided the impetus for an expended catalogue. Results proved immediate and gratifying. Enrollment increased from 287 in 1890 to 435 in 1891. The number of courses also climbed from 19 to 28. And if recognition by the press can be deemed a mark of success, the Summer School advanced significantly. According to the Cambridge Tribune, April 28, 1888, "No one thing more clearly marks the progressive tendency at Harvard University than the development and improvement of the summer schools. For 15 years there have been summer schools here, but only lately have they grown to be of anything like their present importance."

Bloomers, Hurdles

This effusiveness, however, might not have been fully justified by the curriculum offered. The most popular course was Physical Training. In an era of prim Victorianism and sublimated libidinal longings, the sight of such exercise aroused a certain amount of comment. The Boston Herald, in its August 9th issue of 1903, raised its staid eyebrows at some of the activities going on in Hemenway Gymnasium:

"The sight of several girls in gymnasium costume of bloomers and shirt waists taking part in a low hurdle race is not so common, even in these days, when exercise for women is generally approved, as to loose [sic] any of its novelty. And the girls do some good work, too. They take aptly to Mr. Graham's coaching and some of them acquire as good form as the men." The Herald coyly went on to point out that crowds of Cambridge men gathered each afternoon to watch the bloomer-clad girls exercise, and that two marriages of Summer School students had already taken place.

Certainly the presence of women set the Summer School poles apart from the winter session. During the regular term, for example, Radcliffe girls were not permitted to walk through the Yard without an escort. In the summer, however, more than 50 per cent of the students were women, mostly teachers from the Boston area. The number of women necessitated a genteel pattern of social mixing. In place of the current 50 cent mixers, engraved invitations were delivered to each man, graciously requesting "the pleasure of your company at Memorial Hall to meet the ladies of the Summer School."

Physical Education classes and evening sociables were not the only entertainment of the summer. Excursions to such distant points as Lexington or Concord, Charlestown, Marblehead, or the New Hampshire lakes, filled weekends and afternoons. Evening lectures were given by men such as Shaler or Harvard philosophers Josiah Royce and William James. A conference on educational techniques, precursor of the annual meeting on pedagogical problems, met periodically in the 1890's.

Fallow Minds

Students of this period lived luxuriously and inexpensively. Breakfast, served in Memorial Hall by white-clad waiters, featured two boil- ed eggs for eight cents or two doughnuts for three cents; a roast beef dinner sold for twelve cents, quality not specified. Each six-week course cost $20, a price fixed in the late 1880's and not changed until 1929.

The advantages of summer education, which seem obvious today, were not fully recognized in the Gilded Decade of the 90's. Popular health beliefs centered around the notion that summers should be restful, not devoted to scholarly endeavor. Poring over books for twelve months of the year was considered unwise, leading possibly to illness or lack of vigor. The staid Boston Herald once again fixed a jaundiced eye upon the Harvard campus, editorializing in part:

"But, on the other hand, [summer courses] work in vacation time many students and teachers who ought not to do anything, whose minds ought to lie fallow and recuperate with their bodies, and for whom in doing this the ordinary vacation is none too long. Much as the summer schools may seem to be accomplishing an important result, we believe they are in keeping with that effort to cheat nature by making more out of life than can reasonably be made, which is one of the great characteristics of modern life in this country"

One event probably made the Harvard Summer School nationally renowned and locally accepted. The School, upon the suggestion of two Harvard graduates and the support of the American military regime in Cuba, educated nearly half of the country's teachers in 1900, eliciting a wealth of comment and praise.

Rarely do the wheels of education move as rapidly as they did in 1900. President Eliot received a letter on Lincoln's Birthday, requesting use of the Harvard campus for 1,500 Cuban teachers. A special meeting of the Corporation considered the proposal February 13, and a few days later Eliot dispatched the simple telegram, "Yes--Eliot."

Tremendous logistic problems remained to be solved. First, the enrollment of the Summer School would double immediately. The University scoured Cambridge, finally locating sufficient apartment space for the Cuban senoras and caballeros. Secondly, financial backing for the delegation had to be obtained; a post-haste fund appeal netted over $71,000 to meet tuition and board costs. A special educational program for the visitors had to be arranged, including sufficient numbers of Spanish-speaking interpreters. A curriculum of English language instruction, American history (described in the catalogue as "early struggles of the people to form and to preserve the republic,--thus showing the Cuban teachers many of the great problems that now confront their own country"), and two elective courses, filled the six-week period for the 1,273 Cubans.

Blacksmithing Course

Although press coverage often centered largely on a shipboard struggle between a captain and the Havana Superintendent of Schools, the nation's newspapers lauded the Harvard effort and gave it wide publicity. The Cubans themselves increased publicity by visiting New York City, Philadelphia, and Washington, where they were received by President McKinley. The hastily-arranged experiment thus proved tremendously successful, and any latent opposition to summer education was quashed. 1900 confirmed the vacation session as a valuable adjunct to the winter terms.

Increased numbers of students and courses, a more elaborate program of conferences and lectures, and a rising standard of education constitute the major trends since the start of the century. Behind these large, but somewhat dull movements, one can spot some interesting bits of Americana, some reflections of changes in civilization.

Take courses, for example. Black-smithing and three other Shopwork classes were first offered in 1901, continuing until 1916 when Henry Ford made them impracticable. Military History appeared in 1915, "Historical Aspects of the Present War" in 1917, and a congeries of special courses in Red Cross work and trench warfare technique the following summer Classes in "Americanization" appeared in the catalogue for 1920 illustrating perhaps an academic reaction to the Great Red Scare Physical Education, the most popular course in the early decades of the Summer School, disappeared completely in 1933, as students' academic interest continued to increase.

The inflationary spiral peeked through occasionally. The standard $20 fee disappeared in 1929, board rates had gone from $7 per week in 1919 to $8.50 in 1920. By 1937, each course cost $30, and the trend continues steadily after World War II to the present figure of $85.

And, in a certain respect, summer courses may have reflected a growing American concern with learning. The NBC network, for example, broad cast a series of five lectures during the summer of 1935, including one by William Y. Elliott, later Director of the Summer School. "American Town Meeting of the Air" originality from Sanders Theatre all through the summer of 1942.

War Troubles

When World War II broke our Harvard College changed character rapidly. A third term, twelve week in length, filled the former summer vacation. Under the pressure of the new term, the Summer School of Arts and Sciences (although not of Education) disappeared. In 1942, a good deal of confusion had resulted when 2,000 Summer School students view with 2,000 third-term students for space; this confusion did not occur again. A Faculty vote of 1948 reinstituted the vacation session, which again has grown steadily in its scope and in numbers of registered students.

The Cambridge Tribune prophets sized correctly in 1888, when it wrote. "The summer courses are certain the increase in number, and to grow in interest every year." History does show the success of the nation's older Summer School--even if no one can recall the beginnings. Since its humble origins in Asa Gray's lectures, vacation education has been widely copied and justly admired