Corporation Marks 300th Birthday

A dinner in Dunster House at 7 p.m. tonight will mark the 300th anniversary of the Harvard Corporation, the oldest corporation in the Western hemisphere. This group--composed of the President and six Fellows of Harvard College--acts University policy in almost every matter of importance.

Meeting twice monthly, the Corporation listens to specific University problems that have been thought out previously by the faculty and alumni. The Fellows do not generate many ideas but, like the aboard of directors of a business firm, they decide what proposals to accept. The agenda at Corporation meetings is crowded: the group not only discusses into major policy questions but also approves all University appointments and goes deeply into minor Harvard problems, such as a visiting lecturer's salary.

Decisions of the President and Fellows on important educational policy, on all appointments for more than a year, and on the awarding of degrees also need the approval of a separate group, the 30-man Board of Overseers, before they are final. The Overseers--who at present include scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer '28, author John Mason Brown '23, and journalist John Cowles '21--are elected by the University alumni--five each year for six-year terms. In actual practice the Overseers at their monthly meetings almost invariably approve Corporation's decisions.

Although President Conant's selection in 1933 as the new head of the University to succeed Lowell was announced a month before the Overseers were to meet to confirm the appointment, today very few decisions are publicized until the Overseers give their formal approval.

Overseers Retain Control

The financial affairs of the University are closely directed by the President and Fellows, and one of the members of the Corporation is Treasurer Paul C. Cabot '21. The Overseers retain final control in this matter through their annual approval of the Treasurer's Report and through an Overseers Committee on Administration and Accounts.

300 years ago this month Harvard received the first corporate charter conferred in the colonies. The Corporation today is a similar group of seven men, including the president and treasurer exofficio, as the original charter specified. The anniversary dinner is being held in Dunster House in recognition of Harvard's first president, Henry Dunster, who led the work that brought about the incorporation.

The Board of Overseers had run the College in the period prior to 1650, but the first Corporation, made up of Dunster and six young teachers, assumed almost at once the operation of the College. The Harvard Corporation was the predecessor of many later educational and business groups, but its executive set-up has seldom been copied.

Many have said that on paper it doesn't seem possible for the Corporation to operate efficiently, if at all. Its double-board arrangement--with a Board of Overseers in addition to seven men on the Corporation trying to act as a single executive--has been duplicated only at Bowdoin.

Conflicts Take Place

Conflicts did occur between the Overseers and the President and Fellows, but during the 18th Century non-teachers entered the Corporation and asserted its right to lead the University. The more-mature Overseers had previously dominated at times the young teachers who had served as Fellows.

In the early 19th Century the University pioneered the idea of a lay board of trustees directing a university, for few teachers reached the Corporation after 1800.

From the start the Corporation had been a self-perpetuating body, the group electing its new members with the approval of the Overseers. This fact has tended to maintain the same philosophy of education in the leaders of Harvard for generations. Under the Corporation's leadership, there have been few revolutionary changes in the University, but rather slow and steady growth.

The Corporation dominated several of the weak presidents of the first half of the 19th Century. Corporation meetings are completely secret, but the indications are that today the Corporation follows the president's lead most of the time. This has been the result of the lengthy reigns of two very strong presidents, Eliot and Lowell.

Conservative in investment, educational, and political matters, the Corporation through the years has stood out consistently in favor of academic freedom. Public pressure against men like Harold Laski and Charles Eliot Norton has been great, but the Corporation has backed the idea of free expression and inquiry.

Members of the Corporation have tended to be lawyers and businessmen, less well-known than many of the Overseers. Of the present Corporation, few students could identify its members beside Conant and Cabot.

Unknown to Students

Henry L. Shattuck '01, a Boston lawyer, was on the Corporation from 1929 to 1939 as Treasurer of the College. Following his resignation from that position, he was elected a Fellow of the Corporation.

Dr. Roger I. Lee '02 was Henry K. Oliver Professor of Hygiene from 1920 to 1924 and served briefly as acting Dean of the School of Public Health. He was named to the Corporation in 1931 following a year on the Board of Overseers.

Grenville Clark '03, also a Fellow since 1931, was until his retirement in 1946 a New York lawyer in the firm established by the late Secretary of State Elihu Root. Clark worked extensively on the writing of the draft laws for World War II.

Charles A. Coolidge '17, a Boston attorney, was selected for the Corporation in 1935 after a term on the Board of Overseers. He is the son of a founder of the architectural afirm of Coolidge, Shepley, Bulfinch, and Abbot, which has designed much of modern Harvard, including the Houses, Memorial Church, the Indoor Athletic Building, and Lamont Library.

William L. Marbury, Jr., the newest member of the Corporation, was named in 1948. His appointment marked a departure from custom as he never attended Harvard College, obtaining his undergraduate degree at the University of Virginia and then coming to Cambridge to go to Law School. Marbury's appointment was interpreted as a recognition, by the administration, of the graduate schools, whose enrollment is about as large as the College's. Although Marbury was the first non-College man on the Corporation in generations, there had been a few others in the past including one or two professors.

The professional activities of Fellows have tended for some time to get little publicity, but Marbury attracted some attention recently as Alger Hiss' personal lawyer in the early days of his controversy with Whittaker Chambers.

Philosophy Professor Alfred North Whitehead once described the Corporation as "a government by seven cousins," because for two centuries a few Boston families regularly have had representatives among the Fellows. Even today the Corporation has three representatives from Beacon Hill, but it also has Clark from New York and Marbury from Baltimore.

No Pay Given

Corporation members have always been Protestants with the notable exception of James Byrne '77, a Fellow from 1920 to 1926. Byrne, a Catholic from New York, met some opposition at the time of his appointment on religious grounds. It also surprised some that--with Boston's Catholic population--Harvard's only Catholic Fellow should come from New York.

No pay is given members of the Corporation, although the President and Treasurer receive salaries for their University positions. Fellows, though usually men of means, have not been noted for their gifts to the University as many Overseers have. Exceptions have been persons like Byrne who endowed a chair at the Law School, but few of the University's largest benefactors have served as Fellows.

Harvard men have always considered it a high honor to serve the University and have held onto their life-time positions. Since 1900 only 25 men have held the seven positions on the Corporation. Henry Pickering Walcott '58 served as a Fellow for 37 years until 1927, when failing eyesight forced him to retire at the age of 88.

After 300 years the ways of the Corporation are pretty well set. Indications are that President and Fellows will continue to meet privately on the first and third Monday of each month in their Massachusetts Hall office for decades to come.

The mood and opinions of the students and faculty may vary considerably with the times, and there may be lond outcries for extensive changes around the University. Before anything can occur, that little group of unknown men, the Corporation, will have to be consulted. It is likely that the President and Fellows will continue to move slowly--very slowly.