Harvard's Greatest Birthday Party

In the CRIMSON of March 20, 1924, appeared the following paragraph: "The most distinguished gathering in the history of the University will assemble this afternoon to pay homage on his ninetieth birthday to Harvard's most distinguished son, Charles William Eliot '53, President of Harvard University, Emeritus."

The present Senior class is the youngest Harvard group to have seen President Eliot at his last official University function. It is, therefore, fitting that this Memorial Issue contain some account of the celebration on the occasion of his ninetieth birthday. Not only did that day impress itself upon the minds of the students as a day of homage to the Grand Old Man of America, the man to whom they owed thanks for their great University, but also as the day on which the most splendid ovation in history was accorded an educator. It was then shown that the nation valued with true sincerity the services of a private citizen working for his profession and his community.

Few men have had the good fortune to live to receive praise for the work they have done. Most have passed out of the world before the public has made an estimate of their lives. President Eliot was almost unique in living a life of productivity appreciated the country over before his death, and even more so in receiving the spontaneous acclamation of the intelligent public on the occasion of a remarkable birthday party. It was his ninetieth anniversary that those still living who had worked with or under him and those who had benefitted indirectly by his achievements selected to evidence the approval of their master.

Encomiums came from the government of the United States, from the Common wealth of Massachusetts, from more than a dozen learned societies, from one hundred and forty-seven colleges and universities, from ninety-seven Harvard Clubs, from the faculties and students of the different departments of the University, and from countless individuals. All bore praise to the most eminent modern American educator. I quote from two of these messages as exemplary of all. One stresses the human side of the man, the other the academic.

"The Associated Harvard Clubs, representing Harvard organizations and Harvard men from the four corners of the earth and beyond the seven seas, greet you with assurances of profound respect, unqualified admiration, and boundless affection for one who combines the unconquerable spirit of youth with calm serenity of matured and trained judgment--to us the first of living Americans."

And from the General Education Board came, in part this: "Dr. Eliot has deeply and permanently influenced American education. He led the movement to introduce into elementary and secondary education that training in the careful observation and interpretation of phenomena out of which alone progress in science and the industrial arts can spring; he recognized the sanctity and significance of individual endowment and predilection, and procured opportunity within schools and colleges for the development of the student in whatever way means most to the student himself and to society. As counsellor of other institutions and as President of Harvard, he contributed greatly to the evolution of the American college into the American university; he first among American educators rightly understood the character, scope, and function of university training in such professions as law and medicine, and to his forceful initiative and convincing advocacy the improvement of medical and legal education in the United States is largely due. These notable contribution to education by no means exhaust the list of his services; indeed, by virtue of his leadership in many fields of social and civic endeavor, he may be confidently acclaimed our first citizen, as he is properly acclaimed our most able and successful educator.'

And how was our late first citizen greeted on the twentieth of March, 1924? Messages from near and far were by no means the extent to which the country disturbed herself to honor her stalwart son. An Honorary Committee of Citizens, of which the President of the United States was chairman, two living ex-Presidents, the Governor of Massachusetts, and the Premier of Canada, Vice-Chairmen, had been appointed to represent the public. The members of the committee were prominent citizens of the United States and Canada headed by the Governors of Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine. Committees had also been designated by the Alumni Association and the Associated Harvard Clubs. These committees in collaboration with the University authorities arranged a carefully worked out schedule. On account of the smallness of Sanders Theatre it was decided that the President Emeritus should be greeted by the students of Harvard in the Yard after the close of the more formal indoor exercises.

A full hour before the ceremonies were scheduled to start crowds packed around Memorial Hall awaiting admission to Sanders Theatre. The seats on the main floor were completely filled by the officers of the University, the chosen representatives of the student body, and the country. In the balcony were the members of the President Emeritus's family and prominent alumni.

At exactly three-ten the doors were opened to the public which rapidly filled the few remaining places. The avenue before the hall was cleared and at three twenty-five automobiles containing President Eliot, President Lowell, Chief Justice Taft, Justice Sanford, President Angell, Governor Cox and their escorts arrived. Marshal Hubbard, First Marshal of the Senior class, represented the students of the University in escorting the guest of honor.

There were ten speakers in Sanders Theatre who made short addreses to President Eliot. Among them was Charlton MacVeagh, the then President of the CRIMSON, who spoke for the students and presented at that time to the University as a gift from the students the Hopkinson portait of Dr. Eliot now hanging in the Faculty Room at University Hall. We quote two paragraphs from this speech.

Speaking for the students MacVeagh said: "From you they have received an intellectual heritage they both love and cherish--the Harvard that you created. From you they have received an inspiration that will be lasting.

"Their one regret is that they cannot greet you in this building. Yet there is no building that could withstand the shock of their greeting. And so they are now gathering outside, amid surroundings that have become inseparable parts of their lives, to give you a fitting reception in their own barbaric way."

And outside in the Yard between Holworthy and Grays Halls, between Harvard, Massachusetts and University Halls a great throng of two thousand young Harvard men had come together with spontaneous enthusiasm to see, to cheer, to hear the man about whom they had read so much, but seldom or never seen, the man whom they felt rather than Few realized until after it was all over and twilight had descended about the trees and old bricks of Harvard Yard that they had been present at the most notable assemblage ever gathered at the University, that it was to greet the man who had transformed that Harvard from a little New England college to one of the leading universities of the world.

The account of the Yard exercises which appeared in the CRIMSON the next morning follows in part: The press of the crowd was so great that the combined efforts of the college police and a detachment of Cambridge patrolmen were necessary to keep it within the required bound. And it was only with the greatest difficulty that they succeeded in opening a passageway through the crowd for the cars of President Eliot and his following.

"In the first automobile which drew up before the wooden platform were President Eliot and C. J. Hubbard '24.2