Folklore

HARVARD has been catching up to itself this year. By instituting a concentration in Folklore and Mythology, it has found a profitable academic venture for those students who have spent their Harvard careers regaling dining hall companions and Blue Parrot dates with tales out of "Harvard Folklore and Mythology." All the great stories are apocryphal, with many variations springing off a few main themes. The Harvard "paper story" is an important subset.

The never-named Harvard final club maintained its file of papers suitable for handing in to Harvard's major courses. Members were duty-bound to submit original papers which received honors grades to the club files so that future members might profit from their diligence. So, in that never-specified year, one club member turned out an Ec 1 paper for which he received an A, and submitted it to club files. The next year a club member received an A for his retyped version. The following year another club member handed in the paper and got an A, and the next year another one got an A, and so on. Until in that ultimate year, one club member needing a paper for Ec 1 reached into the file, pulled out the paper in question, retyped it, and handed it in. He received the paper back with the following Comment: "This was an A paper when I wrote it and it's still an A paper A."

In the other variation on the theme, a club member wrote a paper for a popular course on "The English Fishing Trade in the 18th Century." To top off his effort, he cut out a picture of a fish from a National Geographic and pasted it on his title page. The man received an A-for his effort and submitted it to the club file. The next year another man pulled out the paper, retyped it, pasted on the fish to the title page, handed it in, and received an A-. The following year, another club member withdrew the paper, retyped it, but decided against pasting on the fish, considering it a bush move. The comment: "B+. Where's the fish?"