THE UNIVERSITY MILIEU

Today marks the formal conclusion of the University's academic and cultural year; tomorrow witnesses the informal climax to Harvard's 1927-1928 athletic and social calendar. Today all eyes are upon the 1884 men who, with sombre intellectual mien, accept the University's tribute to their various degrees of scholastic endeavor. Tomorrow the stage and scenery undergo a metamorphosis, and all eyes shift to the Thames, teeming with color, and focus upon the eight men on whom depend coveted victory or bitter defeat. With one tremendous overnight sweep the pendulum swings from the sobriety of the Commencement exercises to the frivolous whirl of the Harvard-Yale Regatta, and with it there is the normal transition in the thought and feelings of every loyal graduate and undergraduate. Those who prepared to shed a tear for the finishing Seniors in the sentimental graduation milieu, immediately upon the presentation of the last diploma let their thoughts wander New London-ward and shouts and prayers for victory supersede solemn rumination upon the joys and sorrows of graduation.

The two extremes, representing as they do the antipodes of the life of the University in its entirety, are nevertheless typical and like most extremes they meet. The University world revolves on a substantial axis which places the academic at one pole, the athletic at the other, and successfully links them together by the social medium. Comparisons appear particularly odious here, but at no time during the college year are the two almost diametrically opposite sides placed in a more revealing juxtaposition and permitted to illustrate more admirably the fluctuation in the universal graduate and undergraduate mind. For, while there are some whose interest in the awarding of the degrees excludes the expenditure of any sentiment over the outcome of the boat race and others whose mania for a crimson victory on the Thames blinds them to the significance of the honors percentage. It is safe to say that these cases are the exception rather than the rule. In the majority which is composed happing of those who are able to maintain an equilibrium of interest and affection for every phase of their University's manifold being, the significance of the fast that Harvard today conferred 1884 degrees, the largest huminity in its history, bringing a close its two-hundred and ninety-second year with about one-third, or over 30 percent of those graduating in the College receiving honors in studies, will not be overshadowed by a more superficial interest in the regatta. On the other hand anyone who, after turning from the names of the "Summa cum Laude" scholars with both generous admiration and sincere envy, does not let his thoughts wander toward New London, is narrowly excluding himself from as kaleidoscopic and romantic spectacle as he will ever see, an event as representative of one side of Harvard life as the Commencement exercises are of another. Every true son of Harvard will apportion his interest and sentiment between the two days, not necessarily with absolute equality but at least with a certain magnanimity and tolerance.