The Overseers and the Governor

Harvard Daily Herald

After months of speculation by the country at large, the board of overseers, contrary to popular belief, has decided not to confer the degree of LL.D. on the present governor. The question seems to be simply, whether the university should follow a somewhat questionable precedent and confer a degree upon one who was deemed unfit for it, or breaking away from this precedent, not to give it this year, and in the future only to those who were deemed especially worthy to receive the degree. It is, of course, unpleasant to mark out in this way some particular man by not conferring it, but it was getting to be a necessity, and it is not probably that there would ever come a better time than the present to make this stand. The position of the overseers, we can imagine, is that the whole system of honorary degrees, except in exceptionable cases, is based on rather questionable grounds, and particularly is it so in the case of conferring them upon any one who may happen to hold a high office. It is claimed that this is done in honor to the people who are represented by the office, but just why the university should give its highest degree to a man who is pandering to the worst elements and to his own love of notoriety, does not clearly follow from that vague statement. The recipient of a degree ought to be worthy of it, it might have been argued, or it ought not to be given him, for although it be conferred on him in his capacity as governor, yet when he retires into private life he still holds it, and, if he be unworthy, will lower its value--something which it is of great importance that the college should guard against.

If the university, wishing to recognize the worth and services of anyone, desires to confer special honor upon him, it has every right to do so; but otherwise no compulsion rests upon it, and this is apparently the position taken by the overseers, however unjust it may seem to others. June 2, 1888