Harvard Tops All Other Colleges As Six Win Rhodes Scholarships

Six Harvard seniors have received Rhodes Scholarships for 1969-70. This gives the Class of 1970 the highest number of Rhodes Scholars in the country, followed by Yale with five and Princeton with three.

The six seniors were: Bruce A. Boucher (Classics and English) of Dunster House and Birmingham, Ala.; James M. Fallows (History and Literature) of Adams House and Redlands, Calif.: Eric C. Hanson (Biology) of Eliot House and Honolulu, Hawaii; Kent M. Kelth (Government) of Eliot House and Saginaw, Michigan: EricReiman (Government) of Lowell House and Seattle, Washington; and Paul S. Viita (Mathematics) of Leverett House and Braintree.

Although they offer less money and more reatrictions than the Marshall Scholarships, the Rhodes Scholarships remain the most prestigious and competitive. The traditional emphasis on athletics, however, may he disappearing. All the Harvard winners this year had impressive academic records, but only two of the six excelled in team sports. Three of the seniors belong to Phi Beta Kappa.

Bruce Boucher is president of the Signet Club and former managing editor of the Advocate. Eric Redman has served on the staff of Senator Warren Magnuson.

Of the athletes, Paul Viita is a member of the varsity fencing team. Kent Keith has written several books on student council government and edited a travel guide for HSA. James Fallows, Presidentof the CRIMSON, has worked with Ralph Nader and appeared in the Boston Marathon.

Although selected by region, Rhodes Scholars come from Ivy League schools in wildly disproportionate numbers. The expensively educated young man, Cecil Rhodes believed, would best fit into "Oxford circles."

Almost seventy years later, the Ivy grip remains unbroken. This year Eliot House tied the University of California at Berkeley in Scholarships and beat the University of Cincinnati (26,000) by two.

In 1968-69 Harvard took three scholarships.

A white South African magnate provided the Scholarships for the education of "provincials" at Oxford.