53 Minutes to Educate

A Harvard College education is on a take-it-or-leave-it basis, no one is forced to study in Cambridge before they reach the graduate level. The University faculty contains an impressive number of scholars--a few of whom are pictured here. But attendance is not required at lectures.

Since many professors save their personal instruction largely for graduate students, the College man will gain a majority of his formal education through 53 minute lectures--two or three times a week. (Seven minutes are allowed for the exchange of classes.)

Once the introductory courses with small section meetings conducted by young graduate students are passed, the College man will learn or not learn by nearing "great professors lecture to large classes." These may range up into the hundreds, although some "large classes" may have just 25 men.

While the president's reports some times make more mention of Harvard's physical resources cover 150 academic buildings 75 libraries, and 5,500,000 books, the quality of the Harvard education depends on the continually successful replacement of retiring professors.

A majority of new professors rise through the ranks before they gain a permanent appointment, and the Faculty of Arts and Sciences has devised a series of promotions. No man today can succeed in staying at the College in a low teaching position for life. He must either prove his scholarship through the writing of books mainly or else Harvard will release him at a fairly young age so that he can go elsewhere.