MR. CONANT RIDES TO CONCORD

When President Conant rode into University Hall two years ago like Paul Revere, keen observers predicted a Harvard Revolution. They were right. Returning graduates will find that the modern Yankee has won decisively at Bunker Hill and Saratoga and that another Yorktown is only a few years distant.

Flexibility, providing for the initiative of the individual student, is the dominant word of the hour. No longer do hour exams, mid-year probation, and attendance at classes restrict upperclassmen. No longer will specified distribution requirements restrain the ambitious Freshman. No longer will the elementary language requirement force unwilling students into German A.

Emissaries of the modern Paul Revere are scouring the country for recruits in the undergraduate militia which is to make Harvard a national university. He aims toward a live and vigorous Faculty which will help mold the national life.

Naturally, there are dangers presented by this Revolution. If complete flexibility for individual freedom should result in a lowering of standards, the situation will be pregnant with peril. If the Faculty were to become a menagerie of scholars, and teachers were to become as prehistoric as the dinosaur, Harvard would be little more than an over-crowded zoo.

Despite these problems the man who opposed this Revolution would be a fool. In this age of changing standards, Harvard must display vigor in adjusting her own to the new world. When the American ideal of individual initiative is threatened by her national government, there is no more fitting place to prove its superiority than by the banks of the Charles. Harvard is grateful for its Paul Revere. While she may criticize individual steps of his program, she will never oppose the spirit and purpose which President Conant has brought to University Hall.