PRESIDENT LOWELL'S RESIGNATION

President Lowell's resignation heralds the conclusion of a long and distinguished term of service to Harvard. His influence is as difficult to appraise as is the lasting gratitude of nearly a generation of students who have been fortunate enough to share the culminating accomplishments of the President's administration, are especially indebted to him.

The core of influence that has formed a constant purpose amid the changing size and shape of the University during President Lowell's regime, to use his own terminology, in the intellectual and social integration of Harvard College. Beyond the College this double emphasis has been carried out in the Graduate Schools. Ideals of high scholarship have been the result of combined alterations in the rules of administration and in material expansion.

The enduring characteristics of any University administration cannot be measured in terms of the mere changes in organization which it introduces. Harvard of today, and this is to designate the embodiment of those policies and convictions with which President Lowell has guided the University, affords its members a part in an educational process of extremely high standards. The fact that the men who enter the University gain a respect for such standards and a desire to reach them constitution President Lowell's greatest achievement.

If one were to place within the meaning of two words the outstanding results of President Lowell's years of service to Harvard, these terms might to be those of "order' and "current" Under the system of concentration and distribution the College became able to assimilate the oncoming groups of men entering the University year by year. The academic pattern thus arranged provided an ordered and balanced plan of study as important for the planless entrants as it has proved to be for those with a decided bias.

The standards of scholarship which President Lowell has pressed into actuality were set for the men of the College in the creation of the General Examinations. Their introduction has resulted in that rising quality of study that has been marked during past years; it has been made possible in part by the linking of the college years in a continuous current of study. The tutorial system has also aided in creating a continuity for these years.

The House Plan has given to this ordered and intensified course of academic advancement the physical forces arising from the breaking up of unwieldy class groups into smaller units. This change, which President Lowell fostered and finally guided to maturity, has but begun to have its far reaching effect. in his report of 1929-30 President Lowell spoke as follows of the student and his goal in the House community: "He must perceive that mere absorption from his instructors counts for little; that to learn-and for that matter to graduate-is an active, not a passive verb," Here is a bit of writing that states a principle already well mastered by its author; his influence has since tended farther than such a mere statement of the case, and into the active forefront of its solution.

The revolutions in the plan and spirit of study in the college and the transformation of undergraduate life through the House plan are rightly cited as President Lowell's greatest achievements at Harvard. But too little is known of the President's interest in the Graduate School's especially in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. The major part of the President's Report for 1929-30 and again for 1930-31 was devoted to a masterly discussion of the problems of that School of Arts and Sciences. The major part of the President's Report for 1929-30 and again for 1930-31 was devoted to a masterly discussion of the problems of that School and to the principles which should govern the academic disciplines for the A.M. and Ph.D. Degrees. His suggestions point the way for far-reaching changes in the whole plan of graduate study and research in American Universities.

President Lowell's annual reports to the Board of Overseers deserve to be far more widely known than they are. They are no mere perfunctory routine documents. They contain many pages of vigorous and stimulating comment on the House Plan, the reading periods, the tutorial system, and graduate study. A collection of the best passages from these reports would constitute a distinguished treatise on educational principles. Such a collection would be a fitting monument to President Lowell's outstanding leadership in university education and would at the same time be in itself a thing of permanent value.

During the length of years into which his administration has extended President Lowell has become identified in the outside world with the ideas of educational progress that now appear overpoweringly necessary in an era of material change. To those now within the University he signifies that forethought, courage, and vision which has made possible radical changes in both scholastic and geographic lineaments. These changes have taken place without disturbing the effectiveness of the University; rather they have left within the scope of the members of this community the influences towards high academic pursuits. Now the emphasis is not only the ordinary Harvard degree as the product of a man's personal strivings, but increasingly on the degree with honors.

For his services to the University and to education President Lowell has earned the highest possible esteem. Harvard men cannot dissociate from his name the lasting relationships of their education. Respect for him must go farther than a grateful acknowledgment of the progress of the University under his tireless guidance. A generation and more of Harvard men hold or President Lowell an affection that will endure long after the more transitory elements of the University as it is have dropped from mind. Only those men who develop a natural will to serve and ability to lead will be able even in small measured to exemplify his influence. President Lowell's influence i snot solely that of the president of a university. It is the influence of a great friend of mankind.