The Society of Fellows: I

This coming Saturday the humanists will face the scientists in a contest for the softball supremacy of the intellectual world. The occasion is the annual picnic of the Society of Fellows, a University group established in the thirties for "the unregimented cultivation of scholarly genius." While most of the Society's members would deny any cosmic significance to the coming bout, still, as one of the humanists points out, last year they held the scientists to a dead draw.

The picnic is part of a slim social apparatus that holds together a group whose main focus is on individual work. The full Society meets together once a week for dinner in its quarters in Eliot House M-Entry. There, in a panelled dining room about a large horseshoe table, the twenty-four Junior Fellows, nine Senior Fellows, and guests sit down to a very full, informal meal by candle light--the candles set in silver sticks engraved with the names of the members.

These dinners began with the first meeting of the Society on September 25, 1933. The gathering capped years of work by President Lowell, whose bequest of $1,500,000 set up the Society financially, and whose work with Alfred North Whitehead and a Committee of other distinguished scholars drafted the Society's present form. In its report, the Committee, drawing example from foreign scholarly groups, set out what has since been the philosophy of the Society:

"In sum, the choice of the ablest men from an able field, through solid inducements of money and distinction, a choice not made on grounds of achievement, but of promise of originality; a carefully contrived freedom from the usual anxieties and for self-development . . . and effective advancement of the arts and sciences . . ."

To enter the Society as a Junior Fellow a man must must be under twenty-five and most of the present members have been in some area of graduate work. A candidate's name is generally put forward by one of his teachers, either at Harvard or elsewhere. He then fills out an application and is interviewed by one of the Senior Fellows--a self-perpetuating board of nine Harvard Faculty members (the President and Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences are ex-officio members), whose main job is to choose the incoming Junior Fellows.

Upon election, which is for three years, the new member either moves into one of the Houses if he is single, (about half of them are) or receives a stipend to live outside if he has a family. All expenses of room, board, and books are paid, plus a liberal allowance that runs between $1,200 and $1,500 a year. In addition, if the man's work calls him to go abroad, the Society is prepared to foot the bill for legitimate traveling.

The key to the Society's spirit lies in what it considers "legitimate." While it expects some kind of scholarly return for its investment in a man, the exact area of a member's work is left purposely vague. The Senior Fellows, in interviewing a man, make no effort to pin him down closely on his projected work. They place their hopes in the general possibilities of a creative thinker rather than in his specific plans or even past achievements. But despite the shortness and informality of the interview, the meetings have been described as "devastating." A report of one of the interviews reads like a study in mild torture:

"The interview was opened by Henderson (one of the original Senior Fellows) with one of his knockdown statements:

"This is not an examination. There is no one in this room competent to examine you. The purpose is for us to get acquainted, and the best way to do that is to talk. So talk."

"Long pause. The Candidate," the report mercifully concludes, "was elected."

On entering the Society, a man undertakes a routine that is completely foreign to most students. There are no examinations, papers, or deadlines. He may not work for a degree or even teach a section. He may, though, attend any course in the College or in the graduate school completely free. Or he may use the University laboratory facilities to help him in his work. He has no restrictions or obligations to interfere with his own progress; his formal social contacts with the University are limited to his House connection and whatever courses he may choose to take.

These arrangements, catering to the needs of talent, have produced a source of much original work. In the twenty-one years since its inception, the Society has more than vindicated President Lowell's desire to make it a bastion against "dull mediocrity."

(Monday's article will deal with the achievement of the Junior Fellows in their first two decades)