HARVARD REACHES THE PACIFIC

Despite the ominous prediction of Robert Maynard Hutchins that the Harvard national scholarships "will be unsuccessful", President Conant not only has shown that he intends to stay in this poker game of educational policy, but yesterday stacked six more fat chips on the strength of his hand. Next September, instead of only ten prize scholarships to draw entering Freshmen of outstanding ability principally from the Middle West, there will be sixteen reaching out to the Far West and deep South. In President Conant's plan, as compared to the relatively romantic and revolutionary proposals of Hutchin's recent essay, "The Higher Learning in America", there is the practicality of the scientist, and that empirical element of moderation and progress which Burke called "the inevitibility of gradualness".

The ultimate goal of the national scholarships is to reach students from every state in the Union. President Hutchins assumes that the Conant plan merely attempts to break down the obstacle of a prospective student's geographical remoteness from Harvard. It is far more than that, and based upon a much weightier conviction. In President Conant's own words, "The belief which underlies the entire project is that there will always be a few young men of exceptional promise, but without adequate means of paying for a university education, to whom it is well worth society's while to furnish every opportunity." National scholarships understood in this sense perform the two very essential functions of conserving and developing our intellectual raw material. As soon as additional funds are available, more states will send deserving students. No mean praise is due President Conant for consistently formulating and pursuing a policy of such substantial benefit to the country as a whole. If future financial means flow in as steadily as they have in the last few years, it may not be long before we find a Harvard national scholarship in every one of the forty-eight states.