PRESIDENTIAL TIMBRE

Saturday, President Conant delivered his address to the members of the class of 1937; his message was awaited with interest, not in any vain expectation of a revelation of the new President's plans, but more because this first utterance from the depths of the Quincy Street White House was regarded by the students as an indication of the President's general point of view in his dealings with them. This hope was fulfilled on several fronts: in the first place, the President's words showed a genuine and thoroughly tactful desire to establish a friendly and confident relationship between himself and the student body. In view of the air of icy and remote scientific raptness with which the press has invested him, this comes as a pleasure to undergraduates of all ranks, and as a welcome settlement to the small vexing half-questions in the rear of the student brain.

More important, of course, was the expression of the President's wider reflections on education: while he said nothing definite enough or specific enough to serve as a basis for predictions, he did reveal enough to cause fore-bodings. Throughout the address, references to scholarship, research, and similar subjects sounded a distinct overtone. Such allusions may point the way to a gradual, almost imperceptible shifting of academic emphasis from the teacher to the pure scholar, a shift which, if violent enough, might well affright the student. No one, to be sure, denies the value and inspiration inherent in the words of a great scholar and discoverer, or even in the more sight of his accomplishments at first hand. Where this inspiration is most felt, however, is at the hand of the scholar who is also a natural teacher. If scholarship is too greatly rewarded, teachers grow scarce, and all but the extraordinary student are left in the lurch. An even balance between instructive words and sublime deeds must be kept, if the college is to avoid the fate of some of its follows who have become mere graduate schools.

Except for this one vague, and possibly unimportant trend toward the realm of the pure intellect, the President's views on the mechanics of an education are broad and humanistic: they admit the advantages of society's ameliorating influence; they hint at the beauties of conviviality; and most encouraging of all, they show a definite desire to perpetuate Harvard as a gentleman's retreat, rather than a gubber's paradise.