PRESIDENT-EMERITUS ELIOT TO CELEBRATE 88TH BIRTHDAY TODAY

President Eliot is today celebrating his eighty-eighth birthday at his home in Cambridge. As has been his custom in past years, no reception or other ceremonious observation will be held. He remains in excellent health which permits him to still take an active interest in those national and political questions in which he has always played so important a part.

President Eliot was born in Boston on March 20, 1834. He acquired his early education at the Boston Latin School from which he entered the University at the age of 16, receiving his A. B. in 1853 and A. M. in 1857. In 1909 he received the degrees of LL. D. and honorary M. D. from the University and since the time of his graduation, five other colleges have esteemed him worthy of honorary degrees. After graduating from college he served several years in the University, first as an instructor and then as an assistant professor of mathematics and chemistry before going to Europe to study chemistry and general educational methods in the universities of England and the continent.

In 1869 he was elected President of the University and on March 19 began his career in this office which was not to end until his retirement in 1909. Since then as President-Emeritus he has devoted himself chiefly to letters and publishing several books on educational and political subjects.

When Dr. Eliot became President of the University at the age of 35 he was much younger than the usual college president, and yet in spite of his youth he combined an individual educational program with a constructive program that succeeded in transforming Harvard College from a provincial New England college to the broad university that it is today. It was due almost wholly to President Eliot that the graduate schools developed, that they were brought into a relation with the college, and that the standards of entrance examinations and of college work were raised. He was a champion of individual rights and the institution of the free elective system of today was another of his many victories.

Professor B. S. Hurlbut '87, Professor of English, long a friend and associate of President Eliot's has written the following appreciation of him:

So many and so excellent have been the "appreciations" of President Eliot already printed, that hurriedly to write another on the eve of that particular day which distinctly recalls to us a blessing so long ours that we of Cambridge have almost unconsciously made it a part of our lives, would be but to repeat in far less happy phrase. All who think straight and see clear know that the memorial of this man will tower, lofty and serene, among the records not only of his great contemporaries but also of the great Americans of all time, when we who have had the privilege of his friendship, who admire, reverence, and love him, are forgotten "dust the dust among". Only in the perspective of posterity will be revealed, in all its richness, the greatness of his service to America.

That is for the future. Today, however, while he is still with us, we may tell anecdotes, and a single incident of a time now so far gone that to relate it publicly violates no confidence, may show "a reason why". The occasion was a sort of confidential "experience meeting" of "New England educators". College presidents, some of whom have since "gone West" in more senses than one, were plentiful. It tickled the hearts of the Harvard men there present to hear Mr. Eliot, although he did not preside, addressed as "Mr. President": they could not but conclude that this attitude on the part of the addresser was becoming. The question under discussion was whether between the pressure of the secondary schools for a longer and better education, on the one hand, and the increased demands for more time on the part of the professional schools, on the other, the American college was not likely to be squeezed out of existence. The 'presiding officer called upon the presidents in turn. Each spoke at length, and each pronounced a heavy opinion, based wholly upon his experience within his own four college walls, to which he repeatedly referred. When all save Mr. Eliot had spoken, the chairman, turning, addressed him: "And what is your opinion, Mr. President?"

Mr. Eliot's opening sentence, certainly, no Harvard man who heard it has forgotten, for it dealt with aspects of education not before breathed at that meeting of that provincial assembly. "Naturally", he said, "in considering a question of this sort I turn first of all to the experience of other nations". Then, in that exquisitely finished English style of which he is past master, luminous, clean cut, succinct, he proceeded, in half the time the least voluminous of his predecessors had taken, briefly to sum up analagous educational conditions in England, France, and Germany, to deduce his conclusions, modified by conditions of American life, clearly stated, and to give his answer. "Therefore", he said, "from a consideration of all these facts my answer is"--and he gave it. Never once had he mentioned Harvard: probably if he had thought of it, he had thought of it only as an American college.

Such is vision. And from this tale the discerning,--yea, he who runs,--may perhaps read why a little, old New England college, named Harvard, became, under this man's guidance, one of the universities of the world.

For all that he has been to Harvard and to his country, for his labor in the cause of justice, of fairness, and of truth, for his wise counsel, for countless thoughtful kindnesses, recorded only in the hearts of the many who have received them, and, best of all, for the example of noble manhood he has set, we are profoundly grateful