Conant's Resignation Causes Regret; Corporation Searching for Successor

Ivy League presidents, University officials, and faculty members yesterday expressed deep regret over the resignation of President Conant and paid tribute to him as an educational leader.

Conant who resigned yesterday to become German High Commissioner under the administration of Dwight D. Eisenhower, will probably leave for Europe at the end of the month. Provost Buck and a four man committee will assume Conant's duties until a successor is named.

Yale President A. Whitney Griswold congratulated Conant and Eisenhower on "an appointment that will do honor to both." He wished the President and Mrs. Conant success, adding he firmly belived "my wishes will be fulfilled."

Harold W. Dodds, Princeton president, noted Conant's leaving with the "profoundest regret." "We entered the presidencies in the same year--1933--and I consider him a close friend as well as a great educational leader, well fitted in experience and view point for his new job," he said.

Conant's "leadership will be missed as his influence will be felt in Germany," said John Sloan Dickey, president of Dartmouth. Grayson Kirk of Columbia said that Conant has given Harvard an "administration of incalculable benefit not only to his own institution, but to all higher education in the country." Kirk, who succeeds Eisenhower, added that "no more appropriate appointment could have been made."

James Phinney Baxter, III, president of Williams, termed the appointment a "brilliant choice for the most difficult and important post in the forefront of the present danger."

Around the University, David M. Little 18, Secretary to the University, called the resignation "a heavy loss to the University as well as the whole field of American education."

"The appointment is at once a compliment and a blow to Harvard," according to David E. Owen, professor of History. Owen added that "although the silver lining hunters may find sufficient consolation in knowing that German problems will be in able hands, this is the gravest kind of less from our parochial point of view."

Arthur N. Holcombe '06, Eaton Professor of the Science of Government, called the move "bad news for Harvard, but whether it is good news for the country is another matter.