Delmar Leighton: "A Sort of Beadle"

In the middle of the last century, the Reverend Mr. Jacob Abbott wrote a series of guide-books for children in which a character named Rollo asked endless questions of his Uncle George. Delmar Leighton '19, Dean of Freshmen, likes to quote from a parody of the series called "Rollo Visits Cambridge" in which Rollo asks Uncle George "What is a Dean?" and his sage relative replies: "A Dean is a sedate gentleman seated at a table playing solitaire, but he is also sort of a beadle, 'an official guide to the University' allowed to receive no fees for his services." Then Dean Leighton sometimes adds: "Laying aside my solitaire for a moment..."

Though frankly puzzled as to why he had been selected as subject for a Profile, Mr. Leighton does admit to holding down one of the busiest jobs in the University. In late Spring, when the names and correspondence of next year's new men are submitted to his office, he is faced with the task of assigning the men to rooms, selecting proctor for the Yard, and accruing 120 freshman advisers in the various fields. When that is done, then the worst is behind him, and he and his staff can settle down to the more routine job of Committee meetings and trouble shooting for the Freshmen.

Coming here in 1916 from Tunkhanock, Pa., and Exeter, Del Leighton was forced to leave in his sophomore year for service in France. After discharge, he matriculated for six months and was given his degree in 1919. The first job he took was in a textile mill in Rhode Island, putting a glass on cloth. That ended when the mill shut down. Next he tried selling Addresograph machines, but soon hied back to Cambridge and to the Business School. It was while there that Dean Greenough asked him to become one of his assistant deans. His interest in economics led him to tutoring in that field and to teaching Ec A for four years. He served on various committees and in other administrative departments before he was permanently installed in University 9. "I have become more and more enmeshed in the Dean's Office affairs," he wrote for his class' twenty-fifth alumni report, "and my claims as an economist are feeble." In the printing of the book the last word was altered to read "feeble-minded" but this Dean Leighton laughs about and possibly regards as a delayed "College" prank.

Another duty of the Dean of Freshmen is touring the country's high schools as a salesman for the University. Dean Leighton's circuit includes Illinois, Nebraska and lowa. On these trips he particularly tries to debunk the notion that boys west of the Mississippi don't do well at Harvard and after graduation are no good to the folks at home. Mr. Leighton points out, by way of example, that two members of his class are now police chief and fire commissioner of Tulsa and Oklahoma City.