Conant Was Brilliant Prez, Scholar

James B. Conant '14 was apparently always at the top of the academic world.

As president of Harvard, Conant was the leader of the nation's foremost university for 20 years.

And Conant was at the head of his class during his high school and college days.

Transcripts and recommendations from his prep school and undergraduate days show that the future Harvard president was a brilliant and well-respected young scholar.

The documents became public last month as per Harvard's 80-year privacy rule regarding student files.

Conant, who was president of Harvard from 1933 until 1953, attended Boston's prestigious and competitive Roxbury Latin School. A teacher recommendation shows that he was stellar even there.

"He is the best all around in his class, and in Chemistry and Physics is the best student I have had in the past ten years," wrote N. Henry Black, a teacher at Roxbury Latin, in a letter dated May 3, 1910.

"Taking all things into consideration I consider him the most promising boy I have had in science during my ten years here in this school," Black said.

Conant went on to concentrate in chemistry at Harvard, and eventually graduated manga cum laude. He earned a doctorate in chemistry from Harvard in 1916.

A teacher signing a recommendation with the name D.O. Lowell seemed to agree.

"He is manly, reliable and in Physics + Chemistry perhaps the most-brilliant-fellow we ever had," Lowell wrote on May 4, 1910.

A 1911 letter from one of Conant's chemistry professors at Harvard Gregory P. Baxter, shows his own in college as well. "He seems to be an exceptionally capable and sensible boy and one whom the University would do well to help in the every possible way," Baxter wrote.

Conant's College transcripts show a mixed academic career as an undergraduate.

As a first-year in Harvard's pregrade inflation days. Conant received an A in three chemistry classes.

He appears to have struggled somewhat in English and Mathematics, earning Csin year-long courses in those subjects.

Conant went on to earn four more As, three Bsand a C in chemistry at Harvard.

But Conant apparently never lived up to histeachers' appraisal of his physics ability--as ajunior, he earned a C and a B in the only suchclasses he took at Harvard. The rest of his gradesat Harvard were Bs.

But Conant was much more than an outstandingacademic in his youth. Black, for one, praisedConant's character.

"Personally he is rather quiet, modest andunassuming," Black wrote. "He has shown realability to get on with other boys, as is seen fromthe fact that he is editor-in-chief of the schoolpaper, played foot-ball, was in the school-playand is rowing on the school-crew."

Predicting the future with remarkableforesight, Black concluded, "He is bound to beheard from later as a scholar and as a man.

Conant went on to earn four more As, three Bsand a C in chemistry at Harvard.

But Conant apparently never lived up to histeachers' appraisal of his physics ability--as ajunior, he earned a C and a B in the only suchclasses he took at Harvard. The rest of his gradesat Harvard were Bs.

But Conant was much more than an outstandingacademic in his youth. Black, for one, praisedConant's character.

"Personally he is rather quiet, modest andunassuming," Black wrote. "He has shown realability to get on with other boys, as is seen fromthe fact that he is editor-in-chief of the schoolpaper, played foot-ball, was in the school-playand is rowing on the school-crew."

Predicting the future with remarkableforesight, Black concluded, "He is bound to beheard from later as a scholar and as a man.