Conant Set College History Through 20 Years of Reign

On May 7, 1933, James B. Conant was a quiet, forty-year-old professor of Chemistry who had earned an enviable reputation in his field for work with chlorophyll, had gained a slight notoriety among undergraduates for giving a tough course in Organic Chemistry, and was totally unknown to the general public and the academic world. On the following day he was elected president of Harvard University thereby automatically becoming the leading spokesman for American education.

Conant's election came as a complete shock to the outside world and as a surprise to many of his associates on the Faculty. He was no "wonder-boy," no "out-spoken leader," no "prominent Harvard professor," no "scion of a patrician Boston family." He was an excellent chemist, so good, in fact, that a friend couldn't understand why he would abandon his post to accept the presidency. "My sense of adventure, I guess," he said.

Conant was picked because the Corporation saw in him an already brilliant thinker and excellent administrator who had great capabilities for growth.

Conant had always shown an ability to surprise people by doing a great deal better than might be expected. In prep school at Roxbury Latin he had discomfitted his chemistry professor by a few knowing sorties into the field of quantitative analysis, something he wasn't supposed to take up until his sophomore year in college. He bought himself equipment for a laboratory his father had set up for him in an old shack by giving "magic shows" for kids in his neighborhood; he billed himself as "the Young Edison," charged admission, and performed some of the more spectacular experiments in the beginner's repertory. At school he kept up with his serious chemistry while captaining the second crew and editing the school paper.

Conant found Harvard different, but not much more difficult. Entering in the fall of 1910, he raced through advanced chemistry courses and possibly some what bored, competed for the CRIMSON news board. He was elected to the paper January 17, 1912 after the traditional rugged competition lasting all fall. For the test of his college career which wasn't long since he graduated in there years he successfully juggled studies and the CRIMSON, gaining a magna in the first and becoming assistant managing editor of the second.

Following graduation he stayed on in Cambridge to work for his Ph.D. When war came he at first volunteered for the army, but was persuaded by his associates that he could contribute more to the Allied cause as a researcher than as a slightly-underweight and very academic doughboy. Dutifully he proceeded to a small factory in Willoughby, Ohio where the army was developing poison gas. He worked out a method of preparing mustard gas on a large scale, and contributed to the original discovery of deadly Lewisite gas.

He hurried back to Cambridge immediately after the war. Waiting for him were an appointment as an assistant professor, his beloved research, and Grace Richards, daughter of the chairman of Harvard's chemistry department. Miss Richards was perhaps the most powerful attraction; a few years earlier he had been offered a permanent job in Ohio, but had refused, saying. "I'm going to be married and the woman I'm going to be married and the woman I'm marrying wouldn't live in Ohio. If she did, I wouldn't marry her." Conant's family has lived in New England since the 1600's.

It was this research that first brought him to the Corporation's notice as a possible successor to President Lowell. He was not an obvious choice by any means, but he did meet the traditional basic requirements he had a Boston background, a Harvard degree, and a spotless personal life. Conant himself did not realize he was under serious consideration by the Corporation until one day when one of its members casually asked him his opinion of another professor who was being talked of for the job. Conant gave an enthusiastic recommendation, but as he says, it was a giveaway, a "watch out you're speaking for yourself, Jim" situation.

Un-Precedent President

When it did finally come. Conant's election was a precedent breaking one not because he was a chemist Eliot had been one but because he was a commoner, an unproper Bostonian. As the CRIMSON editorialized. "Conant is a man who has to a large extent risen from the ranks, and who is not a member of that aristocracy represented by the Eliot Lowell binary."

Tabbed as an incipient revolutionary, Conant moved carefully his first year in office. He earned the gratitude of undergraduates by eliminating the "rising bell" which for generations had shocked Yard-dwellers out of bed at 7 a.m., and he gave his approval to the serving of bear in House dining halls. For the most part, however, he took to heart the confidential advice of out going. President Lowell "the first duty of Harvard's president is to resist pressure" and steeled himself for the task.

As the president of a $300 million corporation, the president of Harvard cannot often concern himself no directly with faculty affairs. The University's problems often resolve into financial once, and over the years Conant has become a wise and even a bit cynical about the whole problem. No hand shaking fund-raiser himself, he greatly appreciated the need for such men.

"Getting money for divinity, geography, a theatre, or a hockey rink sounds a lot easier than it is," he says." When it comes time for actually writing out a chock people can find a lot of excuses."

This is not to say that there has been no criticism of his administration. When Conant once let it be known that he favored giving science instructors permanent appointments in their 20's because they do their best work then, an unruly humanities professor suggested that the scientists get their full professorships at 24 and then gradually work their way down to instructorships by retirement age. At Yale some feel that Conant was so curious to show that, despite his frequent absences he kept in touch with the University that he meddled in unimportant matters. Disgruntled faculty members have been known to accuse Conant of presiding at the dissolution of Harvard's graduate schools.

Yet even these critics there are no real "anti-Conautites" on the faculty here or any other place enter their objections while at the same time pointing out the magnificent prosperity he brought here. By his forceful leadership in such national issues as the draft, the atomic bomb, intervention in World War II, and such educational problems as private schools, general education, he attracted men and money without huckstering or compromising his own ideas of the president's duty.

Though all this Conant remained a shadowy figure to the average undergraduate who might wish his president to take a more active interest in football games and parietal rules. He himself felt the separation and deployed it, but his complex responsibilities presented any other