Class Day, 1943

Traditions in a Harvard at war can either be inconveniences easily overrun by the pressure and expediency of an accelerated schedule, or the touchstones which salvage from chaos and abnormality the feeling if not the fact of a peacetime education. Not least among these traditions is the Class Day and baccalaureate ceremony which alone can impart the atmosphere of conclusion to a college career. And yet, the departing Class of 1944 is faced this spring with an inane graduating ceremony in which they can have no part and which can have for them but little significance.

The graduating members of the Class have a right to demand as much of the traditional ceremonies as can be arranged under wartime conditions; graduating members of other classes and indeed all departing students can well look jealously toward the procedure of last February. And there is no reason why they should be satisfied with less. It is true that of the Class Day officers only the orator is still in college but with slight compromise all positions except that of poet can be adequately filled. The ivy orator is traditionally chosen by a competition; the singing of the words as well as the music of Fair Harvard is not a far cry from the peacetime class ode. President Conant admittedly has already made his baccalaureate address; yet surely there is no shortage of able speakers who can more than adequately take his place. A class super and dance are far from the impossible.

Ceremonies such as these must this year belong to the college as well as to the Class, but it is the responsibility of the 1944 officers to initiate them as much as of the 1944 Class to support them. Festival rites will be remembered long after hour exams and beer parties are forgotten. And though a global war may make acceleration needful, one can foresee no possible benefit to the Axis if the institution of Class Day is preserved for a Harvard already drastically altered by the shaping hand of war exigency.