Education: Unconquered Frontier

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Indeed, says Nathan Pusey, one of the first things that strikes a man returning after 25 years is the "omnipresence of the book." Part of the reason is that the Houghton, Lament and Widener libraries make up the greatest (5,600,000 volumes) university collection in the world. More important is the fact that Harvard is not only a university, it is also a state of mind. Nowhere is the pursuit of knowledge carried on with more intensity.

Persians & Dante. On the undergraduate level, the pursuit begins in the widest possible ways. When the curtain goes up, it is to reveal the entire sweep of Western civilization. With none of the old, narrow surveys, students are required to take at least six broad general-education courses, distributed throughout the humanities and the social and natural sciences. This amounts to a study of giant themes—e.g., the ideas of good v. evil in Western literature, freedom and authority in the modern world, the principles of science. From the start, students read Homer, St. Augustine, Dante and Tolstoy, study the great laws of science and the experiments and logic that produced them. Later, the stage narrows down to the student's chosen field. Finally (for honors men) comes the senior thesis that might bear the title, "A 13th Century Sermon in Picard on the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary" or "The Persians of Aeschylus."

If students manage to get an education at all, of course, it is not entirely the fault of the faculty. The typical Harvard professor is not notable for his Chipsian qualities, nor is he apt to be an enthusiast for the open house ("Do drop in any time," said one legendary professor. "Next May, for instance"). He is forever disappearing behind laboratory doors, or vanishing into the Widener stacks. Once there, he is a law unto himself.

Jacobins & Joyce. The Harvard professor's explorations know neither time nor place, nor government nor business contract. He has written books on Thucydides. the rise of cities, on the Jacobins, Joyce, and juvenile delinquents. He has composed Pulitzer Prizewinning poems (The Conquistador by Archibald Mac-Leish) and music (Symphony No. 3 by Walter Piston). In the person of Harlow Shapley, he has given a new view of the geography of the universe, and through Paul Mangelsdorf, he has helped develop hybrid corn. Of Harvard's scientists, six have won Nobel Prizes.* Its chemists, biologists, and physicians have invented the iron lung, developed a treatment for pernicious anemia, and through the work of Bacteriologist John Enders, laid the groundwork for a safe polio vaccine. One scientist, the late Edwin J. Cohn (TIME, Oct. 12), made the blood bank possible; another, Chemist Robert Woodward, developed a theory that may lead to the synthesis of terramycin and aureomycin.