The New Colonialism

The University has recently been examining, in one from or another, some serious suggestions that Harvard contribute to the Great Life Process. These particular proposals seek neither a total merger with the Radcliffe administration nor an extension of parietal hours. They maintain, instead, that tall oaks from little acorns grow and that Harvard, alone or with other colleges, should drop a little acorn somewhere out West.

The idea of launching a new college is not really a new one, for Harvard itself sprang from the tradition of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and Yale, which later grew very big too, likewise came down from on high. And more recently, the Peterborough Plan was motivated by a desire to try again.

It was, then, with a sense of high purpose--as well as a touch for the bizarre--that the first of two similar proposals for establishing new colleges came before the Faculty. Originally mentioned "to stimulate thinking" in a high-level conference with a foundation executive, the idea that Harvard should found a "colony college" met with initial enthusiam. As conceived by its imaginative sponsors, "Harvard in Houston" would be a good way for the University to discharge any obligation it might feel to expand, while maintaining and improving its existing facilities in Cambridge. The vision, they say, was one of a New Canaan, of the kind of institution that George Ade once said could give a man "everything that Harvard does, except the pronunciation of a as in father."

In the inexorable wisdom of State Street and the Yard, however, the colony idea has been peremanently tabled, no doubt as an extreme breach of propriety. Meanwhile another proposal has been made to the University which should gain much more serious consideration. Sponsored by the Fund for the Advancement of Education, this more plausible suggestion would found a new regional college from the regular faculties of several existing institutions, ranging in size and and character from a small women's college to universities like Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. The purpose of the plan would be to experiment with new educational ideas and develop a pattern by which first-rate private training can be extended to a larger number of qualified college students. The new college would presumably be launched without endowment, so that tuition would have to absorb most of the costs, with the deficit to be made up by the community in which the college is located. If successful, these new methods could be applied to finance a large-scale program of privately administered collegiate expansion.

Aside from developing flexible concepts of financing, the college could serve as a laboratory for testing new educational ideas. The lecture system of large universities could be deemphasized to counter what the Fund sees as a common tendency for students to wait for "canned" learning rather than to pursue their own educations. The faculty, except for a small core of permanent members, would be largely on temporary leave from the parent insitutions, enabling both students and professors to benefit from a constant exposure to new ways of thinking and teaching.

All these proposals for a cooperatively-sponsored, self-sufficient college amount to a way of encouraging American private education to cooperate in developing new ways of teaching and administration. Indications are strong that such a venture will be launched once its participants can agree on its precise nature and location. When it comes time for Harvard to decide whether or not to participate in such an experimental venture, many of the aspects of the cooperative scheme may justifiably be questioned. In particular, the University must decide whether it will gain as much in prestige and new ideas as it could lose through imposing new burdens on Harvard's Faculty and resources. The ultimate decision--coming from the responsible leader of American higher education--will have to be measured by more than one yardstick.