Harvard History 10a

Watching the 112th Harvard-Yale Game certainly tends to make one reflect. The Game was first played in 1875, and the ritual has been repeated with reverence and care for more than a century. To understand that this is one of Harvard's more recent innovations is truly to realize the unparalleled place this University has in our national story. Unfortunately, even the extraordinary becomes mundane when experienced too often, and we begin to forget to take notice of that which has the potential to inspire. So many of us, myself included, have little sense of the majestic chain of history to which we are melded during our studies at Harvard. The time has come to begin the process of remembering.

Taking a walk around our ancient campus, one has no choice but to look American history in the face. So amazingly significant are the names that are carved onto the simple brick of our buildings: Adams, Quincy, Mather, Leverett, Kennedy, Emerson, Eliot, Winthrop, Cabot, James, Wadsworth, Goffe, Longfellow--the list is endless and boggles the mind. Indeed, the catalog of the intellectual, spiritual and political leadership of the United States bears so uncanny a resemblance to the list of Harvard's alumni that this College's designation as a fascinating and legitimate subject of study seems evident, even obvious. (In his book New England Literary Culture, Professor Lawrence Buell points out that "more than one-third of all male New England writers of consequence between the Revolution and the Civil War" were Harvard graduates.) And yet, out of all the courses described in the 788 pages of the Courses of Instruction 1995-96 handbook, not one concerns the history of Harvard University. I was truly astonished by this discovery. For the life of me I could not understand why not.

The most common criticism of this idea, as I understand it, is that such a course would amount to slightly more than a semester-long articulation of a "Yale sucks" cheer. Some argue that sponsoring a course on the history of Harvard would simply encourage students to pat each other on the back and indulge in a moment of silent prayer and thanksgiving that they did not end up in New Haven or Princeton, New Jersey. They argue further that the mere fact that so many prominent figures in the American past attended Harvard signifies very little; Harvard was simply the elite "place to be." In short, to its critics, such a course would be an extended session of self-aggrandizing name-dropping.

Nothing could be further from the truth. The fact that so many men and women of renown and significance attended this college is no accident, but a function of Harvard's unique involvement in the intellectual life of this nation. How exactly did it become the "place to be?" Certainly, no one would suggest that its notoriety and influence spontaneously came into being. But there is so much more even than this to be examined in our history.

To say that a discussion of those names on our buildings is mere name-dropping denies what seems the most obvious dimension of any list: the commonality of the names appearing on it. Harvard, through the values and methods of evaluating the world it instilled in its graduates, has shaped those who passed through it even as they have shaped it--sometimes because they embraced those values and methods, and often because they rebelled against them. Harvard as an institution has affected American history simply because of the colorful personalities it has touched. How many know of the circumstances, also recounted in Buell's book, behind the simple change in Harvard's motto from "Veritas" to "Christo et Ecclesiae?" President Increase Mather sponsored this amendment as an expression of Harvard's commitment to Orthodox Congregationalism in the face of the onslaught of Unitarianism--a struggle which led to the creation of another college in 1701, one Yale University by name.

And then there are the more personal conflicts that clutter American history in which Harvard played a role. Of all that I'm aware of, one in particular leaps to mind. On June 26, 1833, President Andrew Jackson, who had been bed-ridden due to severe hemorrhaging only two days earlier, hobbled out of bed to receive the honorary degree "Doctor of Laws" from Harvard. An extremely frustrated former-president and newly instated University overseer John Quincy Adams wrote that as "an affectionate child of our Alma Mater" he could not countenance "her disgrace in conferring her highest literary honors upon a barbarian who could not write a sentence of grammar and hardly could spell his own name." Indeed, after receiving the degree, which was presented in Latin, Jackson was said to have responded. "Ex post facto; c pluribus unum; sic scmper tyrannis; quid pro quo."

The argument will be put forward that, while all this might be neat for Harvard students to study, it would be irrelevant at other schools, and that areas of study are not circumstance-particular. In other words, if a subject of study is legitimate at Harvard then it should be relevant and legitimate at colleges elsewhere. Even if one agrees that a course on Harvard and its impact would be inappropriate at other colleges (although I would argue that it would be every bit as relevant, albeit uncomfortable), certainly undergraduates here have a great deal to gain from it in particular.

How can we possibly strive to be worthy of an academic legacy of which we are almost completely ignorant? How should we be expected to under stand and appreciate our place in the history of this institution, and, hence, of this country, if we are close to oblivious of that history? In short, to those who go for the "all or nothing" approach and find themselves believing that "nothing" in this situation is better than "all," I advocate an exception. Such a course as I am proposing would have a unique function on our campus, one that should not be denied for the sake of conformity to a general principle that clearly does not obtain in this case.

In the wake of the Game weekend, our minds drift to the past, and then are abruptly returned to the here-and-the-now by the putting of noses back to the "grindstone." Perhaps a course on Harvard history would allow those students who were so inclined to "drift" back on a more regular basis, to walk down the ancient paths of Harvard and remember who stepped there before. Then, more than ever, would we be worthy of the name on our diplomas.