Society of Fellows Offers Educational Freedom, Gracious Living To 24 Chosen Young Scholars

Perhaps the most cut-rate but least advertised wine sale of the decade occurred last year when three cases of Burgundy went for a song in Eliot House. Fifty bottles of fine imported wine were sold at 50 cents a bottle by the Society of Fellows to its members.

Liquor-dealing is not the principal activity of the group, however, for the Society is a unique organization of young scholars chosen for their promise of original thought and given three years to do any kind of study or research at the University.

"The main purpose is to give young men who show promise economic security," says Professor C. Crane Brinton '19, chairman of the Society "so that they are not required to be section men or bluebook readers to earn the money for their research."

The stipends given to the Junior Fellows are only for essentials and not to provide "affluence," Brinton adds.

The Society, which announced the names of the new Junior Fellows last night, is made up of eight permanent Senior Fellows, and 20 to 24 Junior Fellows. Formed in 1933, it combines the two most characteristic Harvard qualities--complete academic freedom and a somewhat notorious reputation for plush conditions and gracious living.

No Cocktails Allowed

The Society's reputation for gracious living emanates from its paneled quarters in M-entry of Eliot House, its weekly Monday night formal dinners, and the wine served at these dinners. Brinton points out that no cocktails or hard liquors are allowed, but that the wine is "extremely good."

Opportunity for the previously-mentioned wine sale came up in the manner, Brinton explains. Before the war the Society bought 2,000 bottles of the best Burgundy from a French schoolteacher. This supply was stored in an improvised wine cellar in the basement. Unfortunately, the basement room was next to a steam tunnel, and by 1950 the heat had slightly turned at least one of the remaining bottles of wine. So the Society sold all of them to its members.

While the wine loosens the tongues of the assembled scholars and guests at the Monday evening affairs, the overstuffed chairs and special food also contribute to the interchange of ideas. An old-world aura pervades the Society's two downstairs rooms with their oil portraits and busts lining the walls.

One room is to sit in before and after dinner, and the other--the dining room--holds a big horseshoe-shaped table. Upstairs there are bedrooms and a library, and a small pantry is attached to the dining room to supply the special food.

These social functions are only subordinate and contributry to the real purpose however. Scholarship is the goal, and the record of former members is evidence of the success of the venture.

In 1948, at the Society's 15th anniversary, 49 former Junior Fellows were teaching in colleges or universities across the continent, with 32 of them already ranked as associate professor or higher in spite of their youth.

Hundreds of papers and over 50 books have been produced by "graduates" of the Society. Many other former Fellows are on research staffs of large corporations.

The Senior Fellows every spring pick eight new Junior Fellows, for their potentialities rather than for their achievements in their particular field. After being chosen a Junior Fellow, a man has complete freedom to do anything he wants for his three year appointment, which may be renewed.

No Requirements

There are no requirements, no reports, and no checkups, and the only official group functions are the dinners, which help to further the exchange of different points of view from leaders in various unrelated fields.

The only other times when the organization assembles as a group are on Tuesdays and Friday when the Junior Fellows have informal luncheons. In the spring an annual picnic is held in Medfield, culminating in a softball game between the social scientists and the natural scientists.

Brinton notes happily that in the last couple of years the social scientists have won.

In their working time the Fellows do anything and everything. Even residency is not required. One Fellow is now in Japan, and another in Hong Kong. In their summers, Junior Fellows often travel to distant areas, such as Alaska or South America, for research. The Society makes available enough funds for any project a Junior Fellow can justify as legitimate--travel or otherwise. At the present time the largest stipend is being given to an experimentor in the psychology or rats.

Most of the Fellows work voluntarily in close contact with the Faculty, but one Fellow "never even saw a professor," in the words of Brinton. This "scandalized" some of the Senior Fellows, but since then the man has published several excellent books.

Both Cord Meyer and McGeorge Bundy spent much of their time while Fellows away from Cambridge, Meyer as leader of the United World Federalists, and Bundy as co-author of Henry L. Stimson's memoirs.

Only bright young men who have not yet reached 25 are eligible to become Junior Fellows. However, it is not a job any young man may apply for. One must be put up by another person and have the appropriate references, and both candidate and sponsor are interviewed before any Fellow is appointed.

During the war the Society was reduced to a group of less than ten, and all its leisure and ease stripped from it. The Navy was in Eliot House, and many of the Fellows had to teach.

It is not surprising that an overwhelming group of Fellows go on to positions on the Harvard Faculty, as much the same requirements are needed for both jobs. The competition for faculty appointments is keen. With three years to get acquainted with Harvard and the professors in the field, the Fellow has a great advantage over another candidate; the College too has had a very good chance to look over the Fellow and to know his capacity.

These Fellows are not bookworms, though. It is interesting to note that soundproofing had to be installed in the dining room to deaden the noise of the lively Monday night discussions. President Robert Sproul of the University of California is reported to have the loudest voice of the guests.

Four or five outsiders usually attend a dinner, but no matter how famous they are, they are not asked to give a formal talk, but only to chat informally with their neighbors.

The Society was a pet project of President Lowell's, and was founded by him and a group of four others, including Professor Alfred North Whitehead.

After several years of hunting for a sponsor, Lowell endowed it himself anonymously just before he retired in 1932, and left money in his will for its continuance. The first meeting was held on September 25, 1933.

Lowell said, "I do not wish to depreciate the Ph.D. but to diminish it as the sole road to teaching in an institution of higher learning. Nor do I wish to diminish the study for the Ph.D., bit to provide an alternative path more suited to the encouragement of the rare and independent genius." Hence, the only stipulation is that the man not receive a degree for any work done as a Fellow.

The present committee of Senior Fellows who are not necessarily former Junior Fellows, are mostly Harvard faculty members, including--besides Brinton--Arthur Darby Nock, Frothingham Professor of the History of Religion, ex-Junior Fellow, Harry T. Levin '33, professor of English, and Samuel Eliot Morison '08, Trumbull Professor of History.

Perhaps the best description of the organization is to say that it is no organization at all. The complete freedom offered the Fellows makes it impossible to characterize the Society's--there is no pattern except that it leaves the scholar alone to do whatever he wants, and to associate under gracious conditions with other scholars. As such it is unique in the country, and epitomizes the whole Harvard attitude toward education.Junior Fellow GEORGE D. HALSEY, Jr. at work in his Mallinckrodt laboratory where he is studying catalytic hydrogenation of ethylene.