Old Scholars Never Fade; Scientists Go Away

"What do emeritus professors do? They lie in the sun and drink." Thus retired member of the faculty jokingly described his occupation as he thumbed through the galley proofs of his recently completed book. The jest was obvious. Many people who look forward to retirement from the business world desire a period of inactivity, and a life of comfortable leisure. This, for the most part, is not true in the academic world.

Of the 80 emeritus professors currently listed by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, almost half have elected to remain within the University and continue their research. Many maintain studies in Widener and continue the work they have been doing throughout their careers, the only difference being that scholarly research and writing becomes a full-time job.

Opportunities to continue teaching are open to those retired professors who do not wish to remain in Cambridge. 'Many colleges and universities are more than willing to accept an emeritus professor from Harvard as a guest lecturer. Recently, the John Hay Whitney Foundation established a program for retired scholars in the humanities which pays professors an average of $7,500 a year to teach at small liberal arts colleges all over the country. This plan enables the small, less heavily endowed colleges to acquire the services of a great scholar whom they might not otherwise be able to afford. It also gives the emeritus professor an opportunity to continue his teaching career if he so desires. The haven for retired law professors is a unique institution, Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco which is staffed almost entirely by emeritus professors.

Teaching Opportunities Limited

Within the University itself, there are occasional opportunities to return to active teaching, although not in courses for undergraduates or graduate students. Edwin C. Kemble, Professor of Physics, Emeritus, was lately called out of retirement to direct The Program for High School Teachers of Science and Mathematics here. This "retreading" program established by the Ford Foundation seeks to educate high school teachers in the latest concepts of nuclear physics so that they in turn may keep their own students in step with modern science and technology.

This is not the usual procedure however; 66 is the official retirement age at Harvard. A professor must retire "after the completion of the academic year in which he has reached his 66 birthday," unless he is specifically asked to remain by the Corporation.

The University retirement system is flexible and the Corporation has the option of asking individual instructors to stay on until they reach the age of 70, but no longer. In each case the Corporation's decision is based on the value of the individual to the college. The Corporation assumes responsibility because of the feeling that this would be a difficult job indeed for a dean who has closer personal contacts with the professors. The flexibility of the rules of retirement also extends in the opposite didection allowing any Officers either of Instruction or Administration to retire at the age of 60 and still receive a pension.

Under the Harvard pension plan, however, the longer a professor remains an active lecturer the larger is his pension. Under the present system, the University contributes 12 1/2 per cent of the professor's yearly salary to a pension fund that is turned over to the professor upon his retirement. Formerly, the professor himself used to put 5 per cent of his salary into the fund, with the University providing the remaining 7 1/2 per cent. As it stands now, the professor actually receives 12 1/2 per cent of his salary annually, while a member of the Faculty.

Professor Retain Studies

Perhaps the most valuable part of the retirement plan however is the custom of allowing out-going professors to retain their studies in Widener where they have easy access to all facilities of the library. Although there is no guarantee that a professor may keep his study, tradition is very strong and few retiring professors are ever forced to vacate the stacks.

Widener 417, the study of Samuel Eliot Morison, Jonathan Trumbull Professor of American History, Emeritus, is a veritable beehive of activity. Not only is the small office crowded with file cabinets and books, but it is used by a secretary and a research assistant as well as the professor.

A man whose energy belies his age, Morison has kept busy since his retirement in 1955 after some forty years of teaching. In the past few years Morison has been working on a huge project for the United States Navy: a History of the United States Naval Operations in World War II. He has just completed Volume 13 of this imposing assignment.

In this same vein, Morison has just finished a biography of John Paul Jones. Entitled John Paul Jones: a Sailor's Biography, the publisher's proofs sit on the professor's desk awaiting final touches. The volume will be a Book of the Month Club selection, although the professor does not yet know when it will be published. Currently Morison is actively engaged in writing a single-volume history of the United States entitled The Oxford History of the American People.

Morison Has Many Activities

In addition to his role as one of the University's most prolific writers, Morison still holds the title of Historian on ison 300th Anniversary of Harvard College. In connection with this office, Morison is constantly answering letters addressed either to him personally or relayed to him by Dean Bundy. He also receives letters from secondary school students all over the country, which he answers only when they ask for specific information. Of the more general type of inquiry he says, "they want me to do their work for them," and so most of these requests end up in the wastebasket.

Morison retains his contacts with the faculty by attending the History Department luncheon on Thursdays, and is often visited by former students. He sees members of the present student body "only when they want to get something" like information for theses.

In direct contrast to the dynamic, organized atmosphere of Morison's office is the famous study of Harry Wolfson, Nathan Littauer Professor of Hebrew Literature and Philosophy, Emeritus, where he works all day, every day in scholarly solitude. Teeming with books, manuscriupts, old journals and the like, Wolfson's much discussed office defies description.

"Great Thing About Harvard"

Like many of his students, Wolfson after 20 years has grown very attached to his study. "The great thing about Harvard," he says, "is that they allow professors to keep their studies. Your study is your occupation...If you work in your study, you're still a part of the University."

Wolfson retired at the end of last year and regards his first year as an emeritus professor as "a prolonged summer vacation." Actually, the professor has yet to experience full retirement. During fall term he had three graduate tutees, and this term he has been invited to read theses and conduct doctoral exams. His daily routine has been changed only by the fact that he has found time to accept invitations to lecture outside the University. He most recently was invited to deliver the Candler Lectures at Emory University. When he was still actively teaching, Professor Wolfson felt he couldn't afford the time away from Cambridge. He considers them a "good change," and feels that any professor can always keep himself busy in retirement by lecturing.

Wolfson Works on Project

Wolfson's current endeavors are part of the same work he has been doing for over twenty years--fulfillment of the grand design of "working out more fully the background of the problems dealt with in Spinoza's philosophy." In 1937 he began doing research for a 12-volume project entitled The Structure and Growth of Philosophic Systems from Plato to Spinoza.

In this series, Professor Wolfson traces the growth and interrelationship of Greek, Hebrew, Moslem and Christian pholosophies. All 12 volumes have been written, five have already been published and two more are almost realy for the printer. Wolfson writes all his manuscripts out in longhand ("I'm old fashioned") and then puts them away in the huge file cabinets that adorn his study. When the rough draft of the entire series was written, Wolfson began the slow process of revising each manuscript, some of which he claims not to have looked at in over ten years. But all the rough drafts will eventually be reworked and published.

Thus in retirement Wolfson continues to do what he regards as his life's work. 'There was no break," he declares, between active teaching and his emeritude. "I imagine," he says with a smile, "I can go on for years."

A third, less happy, opinion of retirement is voiced by Percy W. Bridgman, Higgins University Professor, Emeritus. "You'll hear many different views on retirement," he says, "I don't like it." The physicist, who won the Nobel Prize in 1946, has been restless since his retirement because he has not been able to continue doing independent scientific research.

Rule Hurts Scientists

The University does not support scientific research of retired professors. If the scientist wishes to continue his experiments he has to pay for the necessary equipment himself. Scientific research is much more expensive than work done in other fields, and it requires considerably more money to give a retired professor use of a cyclotron than it does to allow him to retain his study in Widener. The Corporation prefers to let active professors use the expensive equipment, although it does allow the emeritus professor to use the laboratories if he can pay his own overhead.

"I don't think it's right," says Brigman who obviously fels he has many years of valuable research still in him. The professor objects to the blanket rule that has been the policy of the Corporation since Lowell. For the Corporation, this is just a practical financial measure that is completely impersonal. They can only afford to contribute a certain amount to scientific research and they prefer to give assistance to current professors. Bridgman himself has never lodged an official complaint as he feels "it doesn't put a man in a pleasant position to have to urge the value of his own contributions." But he feels that a more flexible retirement plan would not force a man to leave his work. Bridgman's high pressure experiments and equipment are now in the capable hands of William Paul, Assistant Professor of Solid State Physics.

Bridgeman Turns to Philosophy

Not having a laboratory in which to experiment, Bridgman has been forced to turn to his other interest, the Philosophy of Physics. He has just published a book, The Way Things Are, and has been writing for various scientific journals. He works in a study provided for him by the University, but he does not feel that he is doing the work he does best.

In the last years of his active professorship, Bridgman taught very little--a graduate half-course once every two years--and spent most of his time in the laboratories. Thus retirement has abruptly cut him off from his usual way of life.

Without a laboratory, the scientist cannot be fully satisfied in his retirement. "The professor in the humanities or social sciences is lucky," says Arthur M. Schlesinger, Sr. Francis Lee Higginson Professor of History, Emeritus, "all he needs is a pencil, paper, and a study. Losing my study would be like losing my right arm." Professor Schelsinger, unlike Bridgman, retired at the earliest possible date in order to be able to do the work he has always wanted to do.

Schlesinger retired in 1954 after 42 years of active teaching--30 years at Harvard--and thinks he had taught "long enough." He had been looking forward to the time when he could concentrate all his energy on writing.

Specifically, Schlesinger retired to write a series of books based on his undergraduate course, "Social and Intellectual History of the United States." He has devoted most of his time in retirement exclusively to this project, refusing any teaching offers and giving very few lectures. (One exception was his opening lecture of the spring term in History 169, on which he commented proudly, "of course, I just couldn't refuse my son.") He is not rushing his work because he feels he has plently of time--and he is thoroughly enjoying himself.

Schlesinger Visits Reservations

Membership in the Commission on the Rights, Liberties, and Responsibilities of the American Indian is the only time-consuming activity Professor Schlesinger has allowed himself. This commission was established by the Fund for the Republic after Congress in 1953 resolved to abolish all Indian reservations as soon as possible. The commission's job is to visit the Indians and see if they are ready to be integrated into society. This work naturally takes the professor away from Cambridge part of the time.

Schlesinger is also on the committee of five to pick a successor for President Jordan, and his special interest at the moment is the Women's Archives at Radcliffe where he is Chairman of the Advisory Board.

The Professor is also an associate at Adams House and is invited to eat meals there. But he only goes on "state occasions" since he now knows very few students in the House. This is his "chief regret" about retirement. He seess very few students now and misses the contact he used to have with them. When he was still teaching he and Mrs. Schlesinger used to hold open tea at their home on Sunday afternoons, and his students were welcome to drop in at any time. Since his retirement, most of the students he used to know have graduated, thus only a few ever visit him.

But sacrificing contact with students seems to have been worth it to him, for he is doing what he wants to do. "It's a good life," he concludes.

The question of the man who at 66 is supposed to superannuated, and isn't, thus seems to have been satisfactorily resolved in non-scientific fields. With retired scientists, the University faces a definite problem. The academic life seems to agree with men, and academicians at 66 have many good years left. While not exactly in the prime of life, they still posses fully adequate mental awareness to make an important contribution to the intellecual life of the University. To forcibly remove them from their work seems cruel indeed.

Longevity Complicates Problem

But there are two prongs to the dilemma. Most of the older professors have dominated their respective departments for decades, and the University feels that the younger man ought to have a chance, too. Thus, while retirement may be sometimes unfair to the older man, retention could certainly hamper the career of the rising young scholar.

The problem has been complicated by the fact that people live longer nowadays. In the past, it was expected that a man would not live much past 70, but today youngsters of eighty and ninety have not yet lost their mental keeness. Many emeritus professors still lead full and active lives. If they are not studying or lecturing, they are often traveling or catching up on all the reading they missed while busy teaching. Because of the high cost of scientic experiment, not all retiring professors can be fully accommodated. However, unlike the old soldier, the old scholar refuses to fade away. He retains and puts to the best possible use his intellectual curiosity and mental vigor