War in Our Time

Freshmen can't know how different Harvard is. But upperclassmen are beginning to recognize that beneath the familiar facade of Lehman Hall and the familiar odor that pervades newly cleaned rooms in the Houses, something has changed. It's not just the odd shapes of double-decker beds, and the war bond thermometer looking down on the Square, although these things are certainly part of the change. It's rather a feeling, growing stronger with every headline, that Harvard's way of life is becoming increasingly incompatible with our effort to defend it.

There are some traditions that no one is going to miss. Coasting through college on three C's and a D is out for the duration. But the serious student who wants to get a liberal education in the humane tradition is on an almost hopeless quest. In the sciences he is perhaps worst off: the physics department has been converted into a technical school for the Signal Corps, and budding Einsteins are nipped before they can begin to bloom. That this step was necessary makes it no less unhappy. In the social sciences, specific war service programs are taking men from more theoretical pursuits, and the best teachers are being drained off to Washington. In the humanities, the earnest searcher after truth finds himself handicapped not only by a diminished Faculty, but by a troublesome conscience. He, like his fellows, feels that war is taking the meaning from his studies and that he might do better with a sword than a pen.

The University cannot make this choice for him. Harvard's function has been predicated on assumptions foreign to the dynamic demands of war. Ultimately the decision, for the undergraduate and for the University, must come from those directly responsible for the military effort. Harvard may be able to train military specialists, but Harvard's peculiar task as a university is to train educated men. Therein lies her virtue and her honor. Only when the war is over can she come back into her own.