Harvard To Welcome One Thousand Freshman As It Opens Its Three Hundred And Fifth Year Of Service To American Education

Over a thousand members of the Class of 1944 will awake the yard from its summer lethargy on the morning of September twentieth as Harvard begins its three hundredth and fifth year. Starting with the perils of laundry venders and Lampoon salesmen, the new freshmen will embark on their career in Cambridge as a thoroughly typical class in respect to number and geographical distribution.

While the estimated 1070 enrollment is larger than the 1943 number, which for the first time exactly hit the constitutional 1000 limit, it is by no means the largest class in Harvard history. That honor is held by the Class of 1936 which counted 1117 in its ranks.

996 New Students

Of the total, 996 have been admitted from preparatory schools and roughly 100 are included under the category of dropped freshmen. From 20 to 30 are expected by the Dean's office to drop out before registration starts.

Dropped freshmen are those who have completed a year unsatisfactorily. Half of these will graduate to the class of '48 at mid-years, the remainder becoming regular members of the Class of 1944.

Registering along with the Freshmen will be 50 transfer students who will become members of Harvard by signing their names approximately 500 times.

From all States

With representatives from Iceland and Hong Kong, the class will still be mainly composed of Bay Staters and New Yorkers following the pattern of other classes in the last decade. Several are listed as having prepared in French lycees, although the refugee group is not as noticeable as last year when families had not yet become so completely absorbed.

Following the initial toils of the opening day in Memorial Hall and the Yard, the Freshmen will troop to the Union where they will be entertained with a buffet supper. Welcoming speeches by President Conant, Richard M. Gummeree, Chairman of the Board of Admissions, and Christian Herter '15, Speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives, will follow dinner.