Vincent F. Conroy

It was not brilliance, not the ability to leap on an incisive phrase or turn out a sharply etched paper which characterized the man or made him invaluable. In the five days since his death in Vietnam, the people who worked with him have tried to express just what it was. "He made himself immediately available, to give us counsel," said a woman who helped establish a program to bus Boston Negro students to the suburbs. "This meant any time of day or night; I could always reach him."

That was partly it. His office and his time were never wholly his; he was always giving them to others. For one thing, he loved Boston, and rarely lost patience with any product of it, whether Irish politician or Negro activist. When they were contemptuous or angry, he took that in his stride. He was Harvard to many in Boston -- and he became Harvard to many in Hartford and Pittsburgh - and, because of that, he helped make real other educators' hopes of involvement in city schools.

But he also recognized early that it would take more than involvement, that it would take huge sums of money to break up the increasing segregation of Negroes in urban schools. He transformed the Ed School's field studies program and got foundation funds for that purpose. Had he returned from Vietnam, he would have fought for an even larger and more effective program.

He himself would not have written the final proposals. Other men are taking his ideas, sharpening them, phrasing them. But there is still the follow-up work to do -- in city halls, offices, the streets, explaining and winning approval. At this he was the master. In this role, as in all his others, he will be sorely missed.